


Meditations on Domestic Bliss

by wordsphoenix



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: DEFINITELY a relationship, Getting Together, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Man-shaped beings getting the requited love they deserve, THEY GET TOGETHER EARLY but take the relationship slow, Tadfield gang won't show up for a bit the beginning is Strictly London, domestic fluff shall be enjoyed, immediately post-finale, love will be confessed, slow but determinedly present and mutually acknowledged burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:28:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 57,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21898180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsphoenix/pseuds/wordsphoenix
Summary: Everyone is alive. Time for an angel and a demon to start doing some living. Preferably in close proximity and with deeper significance than the friendship previously mentioned, since feelings are very much allowed now that Aziraphale and Crowley are aligned with emotionally-driven creatures, and, more importantly, each other.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

Lunch was beautiful, peaceful, easy thing, except when Crowley pulled up to the bookshop- when he pulled to a stop in front of it he felt the most horrible pang. He didn’t want to go. “Well, I’ll just-”

“Oh, do come in.”

The warmth that bubbled in his chest, the light, and he called himself a demon.

Well. Maybe not anymore.

“You must see the books,” Aziraphale insisted.

Rather than saying ‘already seen them,’ a knee-jerk reaction, counterproductive, not at all in line with what he wanted to do but very much in line with what he would have done five days ago, Crowley said, “Of course,” and turned the key.

“This one’s my favorite so far.” Barely set foot in the place and Aziraphale was already out of sight, voice drifting from behind the shelves. “Not the most accurate, I’ll admit, but as a work of fiction… oh.” Aziraphale’s face fell as he came around a corner holding a book. “Are you quite alright, my dear?”

“Fine,” Crowley said, not sure what expression he was wearing and schooling it into passive nonchalance. “Absolutely fine.”

Aziraphale didn’t believe him. Crowley could tell. But he only sighed slightly, frowned a little, and said, “If you’re sure.”

_I’m not,_ Crowley wanted to shout. _I’m not sure about anything. What the bloody Heaven are we doing here? Our side? We can’t have meant the humans, not completely- us. It’s us. Us alongside humanity, sure, but we’ll still be here in another six thousand years._ And here he was standing in the fucking bookshop with him, mad enough to tear his feathers out because what did us even mean?

Aziraphale was talking about the book, showing Crowley the indicia and the typeset of the title page and Crowley was nodding along with polite interest while on the inside he was screaming.

“… of me, of course, to find a second edition of anything a favorite, but it was the only print run that included- really, Crowley, I don’t think you’re alright at all.”

Crowley looked up to find Aziraphale’s concerned face inches from his own. “Er-”

“Do you need to rest, perhaps? Even I could use a nap after the week we’ve had. You’re welcome to nip upstairs and use the bedroom. Or the sofa’s unaccountably clear, if you’d rather.”

As Crowley’s brain became unstuck, he realized that Aziraphale thought he was tired. That he needed a decent sleep, and all this would get sorted out. All this being short for whatever their relationship was now that the together bit was more important than where they’d come from. Crowley heaved a breath. “You know, angel, I may take you up on that.” Except the bed he hadn’t known Aziraphale had was too much. Crowley walked forward, caught sight of a welcoming squashy brown thing and flopped down on it. He was vaguely aware of Aziraphale taking off his glasses, and his shoes, and throwing a blanket over him, and then everything was pleasantly warm and blank.

Crowley was happy. Safe. And comfortable. Burrowed into something. Soft and blankets? He shifted, stretched, opened his eyes.

Aziraphale’s sofa. Or the new and improved version provided by Adam, anyway. Soft-filtered light, middle of the day, maybe, if the few visible bits of window were anything to go by.

“Hello, my dear. Are you feeling better?” Aziraphale was lounging in his chair, book open in his lap.

“Yeah,” Crowley said, twisting around to see him better. “Thanks.”

“I think even I nodded off for a while.” Aziraphale was gazing at him fondly through his glasses. Wore them to read, silly, didn’t need them. Looked nice though. “Would you like some cocoa?”

“Coffee?”

“Of course.” Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and a steaming cup of coffee appeared on the table near Crowley’s head.

“Thanks,” Crowley clambered upright and reached for the cup. “Have a good night?”

“I did, actually. Much easier to relax knowing we’re both safe.”

“Well. Relatively.” Crowley took a sip of coffee and grinned. “It’s good, angel.” Normally miracled didn’t taste half as good as the normal kind, but this was nice.

“I’ve found this coffee shop down the street, they do a different blend every day of the week and it’s really quite lovely- almost like wine, with the subtleties.”

Crowley grinned. “Only took how many years for you to come around? A couple hundred?”

“Oh, it’s still a specialty of the continent, dear boy, and you know I’ve always had a soft spot for this island. Or this city, at least.”

“It’s a good city. Lots of people to tempt, lots of people to save. Though I don’t suppose those concerns are too pressing anymore, are they?” That sounded too close to serious. Course, didn’t matter, really, how serious they got now. All the time in the world for it.

“Oh, I don’t know. Not meddling really isn’t in my nature, and I rather thought it wasn’t in yours, either.” There was a sparkle in Aziraphale’s eye, not of benevolence, but of mischief. Thing that kept Crowley coming back, kept them bouncing off each other in endless endless endless streams of conversation.

Crowley smiled wider. “No, angel, I think you’re right. Not in either of our natures.” He drank some more coffee. It really was good. And he was feeling much calmer today, not at all tangled up about Aziraphale and- and _our side_. “Oh.”

“Something the matter?” Concern sliding neatly into place like it had yesterday.

 _Angel_. “Feel a bit wrong-footed,” Crowley said. There. That was true enough.

“Is there anything I can do?” The sincerity in his voice, in his expression-

Crowley took a deep breath. Steadying, if unnecessary. “I think we need to discuss something.” Like pulling teeth. Worse, nails. Wasn’t even sure how he got this far, if he was being honest with himself. And it had been so easy two seconds ago, how had it been easy two seconds ago?

“Ah. I thought this might- yes.” Aziraphale straightened up, tucked a spare bit of paper in his place and put the book on the coffee table.

Was this going to be an easier discussion than Crowley thought? He cleared his throat. “Now that it isn’t- well- we don’t need the Arrangement, now that we’re-”

“On our own side?” Aziraphale finished for him, sounding hopeful.

“Yes, exactly. Now that we’re on our own side, us and humanity against, well, the powers that be-” Crowley was really getting the hang of this deep breath thing. Good for buying time. “Things are different now.”

“Precisely. Yes. And, to be clear- we are working together, still?” What was that thing in Aziraphale’s voice, so yellow and lifting it made Crowley want to smile just hearing it, let alone directed in any way at him?

_I would follow you anywhere, angel._ “Right. Both live in London.”

“Already set up for it.”

“Yes. So we’re going to keep watch on humanity. From here.”

“Yes. On our… on our side.” Aziraphale sounded less sure that time.

Crowley felt like he’d hit a brick wall. Easier than he thought, as if. “Problem is, angel, I don’t know what that means now.”

Aziraphale let out a breathless laugh. “Neither do I.”

“Well.” At least they were on the same page there, that was something. “Have to work out what we want it to mean, don’t we?”

“Suppose we do.”

The silence stretched. Fuckity fuck fuck. “Listen, an-”

“Crowley-”

Crowley grimaced. “You first.”

“No, please go ah-”

“Angel, I insist.”

Aziraphale’s turn for a deep breath. He looked brave. “Crowley, I don’t know what we’ll be doing down here as- oh, I don’t- ambassadors, protectors, whatever we are now, but I quite like spending time with you and I’d like to keep doing it regardless of whether or not we’re needed.”

Not needed? Crowley couldn’t imagine a world that didn’t need Aziraphale. Wasn’t the point, though, was it? Point was, Aziraphale wanted to be around him. Keep spending time with him. Stay with him. And he was saying it. In those exact words. Crowley’s next inhalation was audibly shaky. “I want to keep spending time with you, as well. Even if humanity doesn’t need much help for the next few decades.”

“Should hope not,” Aziraphale said, and then smiled. Beamed at him like he was the most wonderful thing. “I’m glad.”

“So am I.” He’d done it, then. Or they had. They were friends, that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? Never mind I’m in love with you and I think you’re possibly maybe in love with me too. Got six thousand years to get there, give or take, if the lead-up to the first war was any indication. A decade at the very least. Crowley relaxed a little, drained his coffee in two long gulps.

Aziraphale relaxed, too. “Now we’ve got that sorted out, I wanted you to know you’re welcome anytime, not that you didn’t know, of course, and I’m sure we’ll make plans, just-”

“Same for you. Come ‘round whenever you like. Can’t say I’ll be home, but.” Crowley shrugged. “You do know where I live.”

“Quite.” Aziraphale took a sip of his cocoa and picked up the book again. “I didn’t have anything planned for today, dear boy- thought I’d luxuriate a little, now we’re in the clear for a while.”

“Right. Yeah.” Crowley sat there, feeling the warmth soak into his fingers from the coffee mug and flood out into the cool air of the bookshop. “Listen,” he stood, “I really ought to be getting on. Not that this isn’t lovely, course it is, just- have some tidying up to do, you know, see to my plants and everything.”

“Of course. Shall I-?” Aziraphale moved as if to stand.

“No, no need. See you later, then, yeah? Call if you need anything.”

“Will do.” Aziraphale settled into his chair, already reading.

Well. Crowley snapped on his shoes, retrieved his glasses, and straightened out his clothes with another snap. He’d change later anyway, always did, just thought a shower would feel better, get the dust of a day that had finally ended _off_ … even if that ending had turned out alright.

Aziraphale faltered on the next page, and on the one after that, and rather than carry on struggling he decided it’d be best to stop reading for a moment to consider why he was having so much trouble doing it.

Easy answer: Crowley wasn’t there anymore. When he was safely within reach everything was fine, but the second he stepped out the door-

Aziraphale sighed. They were fine. They’d survived, and would do years and years more. Worrying about Crowley was not going to afford Aziraphale the chance to decide what to do with the rest of his life, because worrying about Crowley was an all-consuming task that required every shred of attention Aziraphale possessed.

Well. How could he stop worrying about Crowley, then?

Clearly he was fine. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it, generally speaking, is a duck. Not like the reservations weren’t par for the course. Didn’t go from only seeing each other in secret to just being around each other all the time, and why should it? It was fine. Good, actually, that Crowley felt comfortable enough the bookshop wasn’t going to catch fire to leave him alone again. The expression on Crowley’s face, that moment he was impossibly drunk and thought Aziraphale _wasn’t real_ … And it wasn’t like Aziraphale could _say_ something. Drunk Crowley one couldn’t get to shut up, and sober Crowley loved talking just about as much, but when it came to honesty the former was significantly more helpful than the latter.

Maybe a better distraction might help? But what better distraction than finishing one of the many consolation gifts Adam had left him?

Aziraphale looked around the shop and the answer presented itself.

He spent the entire next twenty-eight hours cleaning.

The bookshop wasn’t dirty, per say. It was dusty, yes, and cluttered, and not as well-organized as he would like it to be for convenience’s sake despite how organization might help the customers find things, but Aziraphale had standards. He would not, for example, leave a cup of half-drunk cocoa out for any unsuspecting customer to knock over, nor would he fail to put the wine bottles in the correct bin for recycling or give the carpets a miraculous once-over when they were looking a bit dingy.

Part of the problem with things like cleaning and organizing was that they ran a severe risk of coming in conflict with the plethora of miracles, layered and reinforced over the years, that were keeping everything together. If there was anything Aziraphale and Crowley had in common it was the tendency to make things look effortless when they weren’t. On Aziraphale’s part it was some contradictory combination of humility and pride; if certain parties were aware how much effort he was expending, they might be displeased. But Aziraphale enjoyed putting effort into things. The expression ‘made it with love,’ Aziraphale knew, was rooted in a fundamental truth. Things done with love just felt better. And he had an abundance of it. Love. So why wouldn’t he pour it into things, offer as much as he could to the world when it could come in contact with someone who really needed it?

Except now the bookshop was remade by Adam, and it didn’t need any help standing up at all. Even the tables at the front were sturdy, and Aziraphale’d had to miracle those more than anything else.

Well. There was one thing he could do.

Aziraphale reached into another plane and pulled out a box.

Light speed back home, obviously, up to the flat. Plants first. They got a good long lecture about how lucky they were to have survived the end of the world. Couple were looking a bit peaky, so he glared extra hard and gave them a tinge more water.

Rather than the usual miracling, Crowley took off his clothes properly this time. Turned the water on, waited for it to get hot instead of making it so. He was of the Earth now, even if he could perform miracles. It didn’t feel right to use them so casually anymore, no matter how scared Hell was of him. Or Heaven for that matter. One and the same, really.

They’d always been the same, near enough at least. Crowley had always thought so. What got him in so much trouble, what earned him the title of the Serpent, the one and only, temptation incarnate 2.0 (granting, of course, the first crown to Lucifer). Didn’t ultimately matter what he’d done before, and as far as temptations went you’d think he might’ve had a leg up in the new job, what with his being so impressive, but Crowley liked where he’d ended up. It was safe there on Earth. Process of getting there, falling, that is, left a lot to be desired. Torturous, sure, and horrifying until you could work out the guilt, all the rage and pain and confusion, but once he’d got that sorted, once he’d got onto the new planet and dug his heels in, everything was fine.

He, Crowley, _that_ demon, the one who’d done the second worse thing and then fucked off into obscurity, was in love with Aziraphale. Guardian of the- well. Earth. Guardian of Earth.

Eh. He already knew, didn’t he? Both of them did. As Crowley worked in the conditioner he could picture how that conversation would go. I love you. And I you, my dear, what of it? Marvelous. Perfectly splendid.

But then, that might not be the response he got. Aziraphale had sounded so hopeful about their even staying friends. How could they be anything else, after that? Anything less? After getting through what they had, together? The fact that Aziraphale worried at all meant he wasn’t confident Crowley wanted him around, didn’t it?

_You know me, angel. How could you think that?_

Exactly. Exactly.

The shower ended up too long and he was all pruney afterwards. Well, Crowley thought. That’s what you get. You’re sort of human, now, anyway.

He got dressed the normal way, in continuation of the theme. Even had a bowl of cereal. By then he was feeling properly strange about it all, if a little comfortable, too; Crowley had always felt that way about human things. Like, I shouldn’t be doing this, don’t need to, not meant for me, but at the same time of course it is what else is this bloody corporation for?

Crowley looked around the flat. It was a place to go back to. A home for his plants, albeit an intimidating one. But he never relished spending time there. It wasn’t home anything to him, just base.

Maybe it shouldn’t be. Now this was his life, now all he had (apart from the open invitation to the bookshop and the whole city sprawling out beyond his window), or all he had that was just his- apart from the Bentley, and that was more an entity than a place or Hell forbid a thing- this was it.

In the spirit of staying human-esque, Crowley spent the next few hours going around the inside and outside of the flat making things fit properly into space.

He left a little room, of course, made a few concessions, but if he changed most of it to stay that way with or without his wanting it to he wouldn’t have to worry about things springing out of shape the minute he left. Didn’t matter when it was only an in-between place, just a waystation. But it could be something else now. Could be a home. Or at least more of a house. Not this cold empty thing that was just an accessory to the type of human he pretended to be. The need for pretending wasn’t the same anymore. Couldn’t hurt to start acting like it.

When the flat didn’t bend space or human perception to exist, it felt more solid. Real. Not a projection of himself, a thing he wore, but a place that could be home. He’d always liked the idea of having one but never thought much of it. Crowley could sleep anywhere, and so long as he had his Bentley nearby he didn’t much care where he sprawled for the night. He’d thought of the whole planet as his home, and it was. Not Heaven, not Hell. Just mine and Aziraphale’s and the humans’. Never a point to carving out more than that. The whole planet was a den, a place he knew the ins and outs of, London especially. Anywhere he rested his head at night was fine, because by virtue of his being on Earth Crowley was already at a significant advantage against anything that might trouble him. Besides, he’d always laid claim to something. A flat, a house, what have you. Didn’t matter much. Aziraphale had the shop, after all. Whatever Crowley had was good enough.

Not anymore.

It was very hard work decorating a flat. Crowley’d just snapped his fingers for everything before. Except he didn’t know how much he should really be doing that, whether it was safe or advisable or even, thinking of the spatial adjustments he’d finally made, sustainable. The ridiculous art stayed, of course, but he supplemented it with a few other things. A painting of a boat on storm-tossed waters done by somebody’s grandfather and left in an antique shop for years, an old map of London he’d picked up in a place that also called itself an antique dealer’s but was really more focused on selling things at unreasonably high prices to young career people.

Took Crowley the better part of a day to sort it all out. And even then, that was just the buying. No telling how long it’d take him to arrange everything once it got there. He’d paid express, of course, next day and everything, but again... didn’t feel right, miracling everything. Or safe.

Which reminded him, his accounts were not, strictly speaking, miracle-free. Before any of the deliveries were slated to arrive next morning he headed to the bank, fixed it all up. Only had to use a little persuasion. After that he was set. Never mind if Hell remembered to turn off the platinum cards; Crowley’d been saving for years, anyway. Knew he couldn’t trust the bastards in the end.

When everything came it fit in all the empty space. Rather than have them haul the old things away, Crowley decided to sell them on Craigslist. By nightfall his apartment was back to its usual amount of stuff and looking considerably more comfortable than before.

Plenty of work for one day. More than enough. Crowley retired to his bedroom, the only room he’d put any effort in before this change of mind, and passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few old- er- 'friends' isn't exactly the right word- make appearances, though strictly, of course, in contribution to our heroes determining how human they ought to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a single scene, pov Crowley. Alternating with the flow of the story and trying to give them the time they need, so next one will start with Aziraphale.

“Oh, I love what you’ve done with the place!”

“Do you?” Crowley stood back, trying to see his handiwork through Aziraphale’s eyes. He’d had a few more days to adjust things, make sure the sofa was set back just so from the television and the proper number of throw pillows and table runners and things were on their respective pieces of furniture. Hadn’t added much more than a little color, a little warmth, a breath of life into the place. And lighting more worthy of the ridiculous art it illuminated. Still. Lot of work. Would have been a lot of uncertainty, too, if Crowley didn’t look at each thing and think ‘I want that’ and then behave the same way when he was arranging it all- this should go there, that sort of thing.

“It’s gorgeous. And quite a bit cozier than before.”

“Well. I decided to, you know… stop bending space quite so much.” Crowley couldn’t help but be conscious of the square footage he’d lost. Everything had still fit, of course, but before the online sales thing there may have been a bit of extra space bending. Just to make enough room for him to get the other stuff right while he waited on the uni students who couldn’t believe such a massive sofa was so cheap. You have to haul it yourself, that’s the catch, he’d told them. The tallest one had laughed and said for a catch it wasn’t much of one.

“Ah.” Aziraphale went to the kitchen and popped open a cabinet. “Aha!” He turned with a box of cocoa in his hand.

Crowley willed himself not to blush and strode over to the sofa. “Anyway, angel, I will get you to watch television, you mark my words.” _Someone_ , it was comfortable. Much more comfortable than before. Not that it hadn’t been, for the rare occasions he used it, just- this was better. Crowley had sat on this before buying it. Chosen it for the way you sank into it when you sat down. And it had blankets plural, not just the one fluffy thing he hadn’t been able to resist for how ridiculous it looked.

“You’ve been saying that since the blasted things were invented.” Aziraphale strode into the living room and glanced appreciatively around. “Very good, Crowley. Much more you.”

“The place before was me. Not much of a den, I’ll grant you, but…” he shrugged. “Being more human.”

“I’ve thought about that a lot, actually.” Aziraphale bit his lip, took a seat in an armchair (new one, subtle print, borderline tartan, not at all chosen specially for the purpose of Aziraphale sitting in it). “It’s different, now, you see. The bookshop’s been my home for some time now, but I never thought…” Aziraphale looked like he was battling with himself about something, oscillating between ‘I’m just going to say it’ and the infinitely more familiar ‘better not.’ That one seemed to win. “Yes, well, it’s really out of the question, now, either of us going back for anything short of another apocalypse. My mind seems to be on the same track as yours. Should we act more human? Now we’re here?”

Crowley raised his eyebrows, considering. “Depends what you mean.” The flat was well and good, Crowley could use a bit of comfort to call his own, but, as the shower and cereal of a few days ago had proven, this human thing could go on indefinitely. Didn’t have any set limitations. Could just keep doing it forever, if they wanted it to. Well. ‘Til the next Armageddon, at least.

“Well, you know, our corporations are very… advanced. Compared to humans.”

“Sure, yeah. Did you have any aspect in mind?” Crowley was only really concerned about the discorporation bit, but again, advanced. Headed that off quite nicely most of the time.

“Not especially. Just sort of everything. Organs, skin, and such. To say nothing of our wings, of course.”

“Right. Yeah. S’far as I know our organs just keep working in tip-top shape, if we even have any. Huh. Never considered that bit. Don’t eat much, you know? Like a good shower, things like that, but it doesn’t feel the same without the wings. Easier, really, miracle yourself clean. And as for sleep, I just thought, I’d like to sleep for a while, and then I do. When it comes to the rest of it, always think, you know…” Crowley shrugged. “Bit of a Ken doll down there, aren’t we?” Remarkable how calm he was being about all this. Distance, that must have been it. Had enough distance from Aziraphale the past few days not to twist himself into knots about it when he finally saw him again, because it was so nice, finally seeing him again. Never mind they were talking about the finer details of their corporations.

“Well, I- metaphysically speaking, we don’t- yes, alright, fine, but I’ve seen your trousers.” Aziraphale went red at this, which was really lovely.

Crowley kept being nonchalant. Easier when there was something in it for him, that blush being the something. “Look at my trousers often, then?” This was an easy question to ask when said trousers were on full display given Crowley’s comfortable position on the sofa.

“No, the- they're tight, Crowley. The fit. I mean, being concerned with proper human presentation, I can’t help but wonder if that affects, the ah-” Aziraphale really was quite red, beautifully rosy-looking, “-comfort. Or whatever it is you’d call it. You know. In a human- in human form.”

Crowley released an impressive sigh. For as hard as it was to talk all this human stuff out he had to admit it was entertaining. “Ah. Yes. I understand. Right, well, normally, like, back in earlier days, I’d say better just to not worry about it and carry on. But over the years I’ve decided that being mostly anatomically correct really helps with everything else. You know, the flow, the walking, body language, and, yes, fit of clothes, that sort of thing. Can’t really be human- or apparently human, or whatever this in-between we’re doing now is- and not have the corporeal form to back it up, you know?”

“Right. Well-” Aziraphale was concerningly red then, tumbling through the sentence like he hadn’t been the one who’d brought it up, “-you see I’ve found that sort of thing to be true as well. What with- given the artistic opportunities and everything.”

A person wouldn’t have known what he was about, but Crowley got it instantly: people immortalized form through art. Once they’d been on Earth long enough for proper form to be a concern, the easiest thing to look to as an example had been art. Not exactly sporting of a celestial or infernal being, as it were, to go asking people what was under their clothes. Not to mention all the less-pleasant bits- the grave-robbing, for example- that the artists could just do for them, so instead of needing to poke around themselves they could just miracle over the artists’ understanding of the body.

What surprised Crowley was that Aziraphale had given it the same consideration he had. Not the accuracy bit, anybody could do the accuracy bit, just- the whole angels being sexless thing. He’d honestly spent the past six thousand years thinking Aziraphale would have had some of that still going on, no matter how well his own trousers fit. To say nothing of the rest of it, which Crowley would not consider right now, thank you very much.

Crowley realized he was being stared at, and that not to respond would only fluster Aziraphale further, so he said, “Seems we’re on the same page, then.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale sounded faint. “Right.”

“So what is it, we were, er, talking about?” Crowley felt his nonchalance slipping despite himself.

“How human it would benefit us to be, now we’re, as you said, in-between sort of beings.”

“Huh.” Crowley hadn’t got very far into those considerations himself. Beyond the flat and the sparing use of miracles, of course. “Well... Suppose we could conduct a few tests.”

“Yes, tests. Splendid. What kind of tests?”

“Tests of how our powers are holding up, given the new circumstances of our situation.”

“Right.” Aziraphale looked determined and bewildered. “How do we do that?”

“Maybe try a few miracles? Less common ones, I mean.”

“Heaven won’t-” but Aziraphale cut off, then, realizing his mistake- or what might have been one. “Oh. _Oh_. As long as they’re going to leave us alone, they really have no reason- let alone any justification-”

“Exactly,” Crowley said.

“We wouldn’t want to overstep, of course, draw too much attention, but-”

Crowley snapped his fingers.

“What did you just do?”

“Nothing.”

“Crowley!”

“Look out the window, would you?”

Aziraphale did. When he turned back he was radiant with joy. “ _Crowley_.”

Had to admit hearing it in that tone was quite a bit nicer. “What?”

“A long-lost child, Crowley, really, I mean, what are the chances, and then...” Aziraphale looked about to cry.

Crowley flapped a hand around. “Nah. Chances are fine. London, isn’t it? International city. And that kid’s going to invent something highly controversial now, I expect, you should see his marks.”

Aziraphale’s watery smile faltered in thoughtfulness. “You still know his marks?”

Crowley felt a blush creep at his neck. Because he couldn’t lie about this, it was too damned important- “May’ve been planning that one. Just needed a push to go off.”

All the joy came back to Aziraphale’s expression, if now a bit tempered by the consideration of whether or not they had access to that kind of information. “Oh, yes, those are quite good marks.”

“There,” Crowley said. “Brilliant.” He tried not to think of the blow his reputation had taken, reputation be buggered in Aziraphale’s eyes anyway, by answering before Aziraphale checked himself. Or maybe that was his plan. Always craftier than anyone gave him credit for, that angel. “So we can still view the human rosters, then?”

“It would appear so. And last I checked upstairs didn’t keep a record of who viewed what, bit more paperwork than anybody wanted to be responsible for-”

“Same downstairs,” Crowley said with a nod.

“So we’ve got that going for us,” Aziraphale said. “As for minor miracles, they probably count a little, just not the way things did before.”

“Right. Thing is, we need a way to know if they’re keeping track.” Crowley leaned back into the cushions, considering. As beautiful as Aziraphale was to gaze at and think about and half-repress feelings for, determining their respective positions in the celestial hierarchy was much more pressing at the moment.

Aziraphale flapped a hand towards the window. “That one you did just now, how much, er, divine energy-?”

“Loads. Had to stop one of them being hit by a lorry, did you see the thing parked in the middle of the road?”

Aziraphale blinked. “But you can’t have known I was coming over precisely when I did?”

“Of course I didn’t, thereby further cementing your theory about my inherent gooiness, not the point, angel. Best thing to do would be wait a while and see if they take issue. Or have you do one, too, compare results, but I don’t know whether that would be the best-”

“Splendid idea.”

“Fucking shite.” Because before Crowley could say anything, the angel was snapping his fingers. “What’d you do, then?”

A great crack of thunder sounded, and the skies opened up.

“Wasn’t it partly-sunny a minute ago?”

“Yes.”

“And what exactly does this ac-”

“Same family. It was pouring the night they lost each other and even though he was only three the rain’s loosed the memory.”

Crowley blinked. “Two miracles on the same people?”

Aziraphale huffed, eyes still bright but edged with impatience. “Yes, of course the same people. This way they’ll have an easier time building a relationship without the same barrier of amnesia in the way, and the more divine energy is exerted on the same person-”

“The more attention they draw from upstairs,” Crowley finished for him.

“Exactly. Same the other way, I take it?”

Crowley shrugged. “When they can be bothered to care. Speaking of which,” he switched the television on.

“Crowley, I don’t know how that-”

_CROWLEY._

“Yes, your, er, pestilency.”

_Y- WAIT, IS SHE HERE?_

“No. Slip of the tongue. Carry on.”

_RIGHT. CROWLEY. YOU’VE USED A RATHER SEVERE AMOUNT OF INFERNAL ENERGY JUST NOW. CARE TO EXPLAIN WHY?_

“No. Don’t have to tell you anything. Fucked off to Earth forever, didn’t I?”

_THAT MAY BE SO, BUT YOUR ACTIONS STILL DRAW FROM OUR UNHOLY RESERVES._

“Are you asking me to stop? What if I told you quite a bit of bad was going to come from what I just did? Heaps of it. What’d you say then?”

A noise came from the speakers which Crowley could only describe as a frustrated sigh.

“Yeah. Exactly.”

_EVEN SO. WE WILL NOT TOLERATE UNLIMITED DIPPING INTO OUR RESOURCES. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO INSTIGATE RETRIBUTIVE ACTION-_

“Like what, you can’t do anything to me.”

_THE HUMANS, CROWLEY. IF YOU DO NOT WANT US COMING AFTER YOUR HUMANS, YOU WILL KEEP YOUR THEFT TO A MINIMUM._

“Hang on, I may not still be a demon, but I was once of your fold, it’s how I was brought up, isn’t it, you can’t expect me not to _steal_ -”

The line went dead.

“Ah. Right. That’s nice. Yeah, hang up, I could’ve been asking you to tea, could’ve been a cry for help, you’ll never know now, will you?”

“Crowley?” Aziraphale’s voice was unusually small.

“Hm? And sorry, by the way, didn’t know they’d do that.” Crowley had to admit it was a jarring experience, must be even more so for someone who had seen it so much less frequently than he had.

“Did they know I was here?”

Crowley shrugged. “Didn’t comment on it if they did. Seemed like the other times you were just in the room without them noticing. Why?”

“Well, I was wondering if-”

A knock on the door interrupted him.

“Bollocks,” Crowley said, and went to go open it.

Aziraphale flailed after him, albeit a few feet away. “Wait, no, what if it’s-”

“That lot? I’m sure it is. Still be hard-pressed to set foot in my home, wouldn’t they?” Crowley pulled the door open to find Gabriel standing there, fake smile simmering with rage. “What d’you want, then?”

“I have come to deliver a message to the former Principality Aziraphale-”

“Can’t rescind his title, it was God-given.”

Gabriel’s smile strained tighter. “Regarding recent events.”

“Right. Well, I’d invite you in, but, you know. Demonic wards.”

“Of course. Would Aziraphale perhaps-”

“What do you want, Gabriel?” Aziraphale was peering over Crowley’s shoulder, making no attempt to interfere with Crowley’s bodily blocking of the doorway and looking rather annoyed, like Gabriel had interrupted a good meal.

“May we speak in private?”

Crowley snorted. “Nah. What’d you need to do that for? Gatekeepers of humanity now. Anything you tell him he’d turn around and tell me anyway.”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows in a prim ‘well, it’s true’ expression.

Gabriel’s jaw looked so harshly clenched it would have shattered normal human teeth. “Right,” he gritted out. “Well, it has come to our attention that a miracle has been performed, and a rather ostentatious one at that-” he was interrupted by a thunderclap. Gabriel’s eyes glinted cruelly. “I have been sent to remind you that since you are no longer an agent of Heaven-”

“Are you sure?” Crowley interrupted. “Sure he hasn’t been promoted without you knowing it? Speaking of, have you actually heard from Her at all, since-”

Gabriel spoke louder. “As you are no longer an agent of Heaven, it would be unseemly for you to continue diverting holy energies for your own purposes. While it does not strictly speaking belong to any of us, you forfeited your right to use it through blatant acts of insubordination-”

“Is that all?” Aziraphale asked. He sounded bored, tired, like he’d expected all this rigamarole and was most unimpressed by Gabriel’s inevitable delivery of it.

Gabriel sputtered.

Crowley turned to Aziraphale. “May I?”

“By all means, my dear.”

Crowley slammed the door in his face.

“That was brilliant,” Aziraphale said, breathless. And red again, don’t forget that.

Crowley blinked, taken aback by the continued proximity. “You were brilliant.”

Aziraphale held his ground for a second, then spun away. “Yes, well, in any case, that answers that question. Best avoid using too many miracles unless we want to continue drawing undue attention to ourselves.” He perched in the chair again, crossed his legs, but his arms rested on either armrest, open. “That answers that question, then. Care for some tea?”

“Tea?” Crowley felt a bit faint. Not about Gabriel; Gabriel could fuck right off. It was Aziraphale’s attitude, so refreshing and unexpected. Made his head hurt. And made him fall in love that much more, but, well. Can’t say it was the first time that’d happened.

“Yes, tea. While I know both of us are more partial to earthier delights, I find there are few things more soothing for the mind than a nice hot cup of tea. What do you say?”

“I say I haven’t got a teapot.”

“We’ll go out for it, then.” Aziraphale rose, went to the new set of hooks by the door, took Crowley’s favorite leather jacket from one of them, and held it out.

Crowley took the jacket and shrugged it on. No use commenting how he shouldn’t have needed it in the summer and they hadn’t been around each other nearly enough in the past three years for Aziraphale to know that was his favorite, had they?

When Crowley made for the Bentley Aziraphale shook his head, and they ended up down the street at a Costa that was unusually quiet for what Crowley realized should be the beginning of the lunch rush. Aziraphale caught sight of his face and grinned. “What, think I’d find it below me?”

Crowley, torn between the desire to burst out laughing and start shouting his head off about how Aziraphale couldn’t go six thousand years tiptoeing around jokes like that and then make one and expect it to be alright, decided instead to crack a deranged smile in response.

That seemed to do the trick. Aziraphale ordered them two teas, jasmine green for himself and mint for Crowley. That in itself read like a suggestion, I’m here to have a good long think and so may you be too but you need to calm down.

Well. Couldn’t argue with that.

A few minutes after they’d found a spot to sit with their teas, the woman from behind the counter brought Aziraphale a cheddar and tomato toasty.

“Should’ve guessed,” Crowley said.

“What, should’ve guessed?”

Crowley waved in the general direction of the toasty. “S’lunch time. Should’ve said something, we didn’t have to go for tea, there’s an Italian place right around the corner from here that might be-”

“Hush, dear, this will do well enough.”

Crowley gazed at him another second. Took that honest spark of enjoyment- not the fake one Aziraphale did when he was trying to be polite- for Crowley to glance away, satisfied. For a few minutes they sat in companionable silence, Crowley soaking up the warmth of the tea through his hands and Aziraphale making little noises of delight as he polished off the first half of his sandwich.

Another minute passed. Five. The tea was calming. Helping him think. Work out in more coherent words than internal screeching why exactly he enjoyed watching Aziraphale eat so much. Love, that was it. Thing that only made sense if you loved someone. Well. Not like Crowley hadn’t worked that bit out days ago. Decades ago, centuries ago. But how did one go about explaining it? I like watching you eat, which would normally be weird, since I’m, of course, a former demon, or half of one, what have you, but it makes perfect sense because I’m in love with you?

Yeah. That'd go over well.

“You may want to put voice to your thoughts. I find it helps me even when no one’s around to listen, though it does feel a bit mad at first.”

Crowley shook his head. “Talk to myself all the time, angel. You’ve just been taking it as normal conversation for the past twelve hundred years or so and I’ve been going along.”

“Well?”

“Oh, alright. I’m thinking where do we go from here? Just carry on doing what we like until something stops us?”

“I was wondering the same thing. I mean, minor miracles are easy enough, don’t draw any attention at all, and if they weren’t still a bit afraid of us they’d both have been a lot worse back there.”

“Exactly. So, shall we just...” Crowley waved a hand, trying to encompass the whole planet in the gesture.

“I think we _should_ just,” Aziraphale said. “Speaking of which, there’s a play going on this weekend, not a comedy, I promise, and I thought...”

It really was a lovely play.


	3. Chapter 3

Aziraphale took to retirement like dolphins did to attention.

It wasn’t a surprise to anyone. He was still keeping the bookshop open, of course, as everyone who knew of him knew he would. But that ‘pesky business I’m afraid keeps my hours so strange’ was no longer a concern. Did it mean his three regular customers expected more opening hours than usual? Yes. But that was fine.

Except it really _was_. Fine. Aziraphale had decided that he might as well use the bookshop as a conduit for easy miracles now doing too many posed a greater risk than before. He separated out the rarer bits of the shop, sectioned the place more coherently even than his preliminary organization had accomplished, and he was even able to bring a few of the things from downstairs that he’d so inelegantly crammed into his flat when all of them from the external plane hadn’t fit properly. He got himself a proper till, one that opened when it was bid instead of sticking, and he even made the dreaded switch, in paperwork as well as practice, to accepting credit cards.

The bell dinged. Baker down the road, lovely chap, didn’t come in often but Aziraphale was at his place most business-free mornings, so they were quite well-acquainted with each other. “Mr. Fell! Place looks great!”

“Yes, well- been getting on, you know, old building, old stock. Thought it was time for a change.”

The baker, a one Mr. Greensboro, ambled into the contemporary nonfiction section with interest. “Marie Antoinette, eh?”

“She was a pivotal figure, and a dear friend of mine rather enjoyed the film.”

“Ginger bloke, always zipping around in the old car?”

“Crowley.”

“That’s the one. Haven’t seen him around lately.” Mr. Greensboro raised his eyebrows in what was clearly meant to be a gently suggestive expression.

Rather than saying it’s been six thousand years you’ve no idea the extent of this, Aziraphale responded, “Yes, well. Change of career on his end, too. Keeps one busy.”

“Yes. Got any Jeffrey Archer books?”

The suggestion of a deeper relationship with Crowley nagged Aziraphale more persistently that day than it ever had before. Which was absurd, someone had given them a look in the street on the day of the church, that very day in 1941, when the city was being bombed and people were supposed to be in shelters, someone had given them that rare glance that said ‘I know what you’re about, chap’ but also ‘good for you, then,’ that conspiratorial look Aziraphale had learned to identify from a thousand yards in that club where he learned the gavotte. In 1941, for somebody’s sake! And somehow that was not more distracting than thinking about Crowley now, because…

Aziraphale sighed. _Because you love him_.

Nearly took a miracle not to tack something self-depreciating on the end. Honestly. Aziraphale was seeing him the next day, they had a date. Hadn’t bothered to call it anything else since that meaning was invented. Save the date, would you go on a date with me, it’s a date, didn’t matter which one or how romantic it was. They had a date the next day.

Aziraphale went back to organizing, even though the shop was well-organized enough for Mr. Greensboro to have found the Jeffrey Archer books himself.

What was one more long day in a serious of very long, unreciprocated days?

It was just sushi, insofar as a date with Crowley could be considered ‘just’ anything. He even got more than one roll this time, opting for one of the specialties on top of his vegetarian favorite. “Humans eat fish,” Crowley said decisively as the waiter strolled away.

“That they do. That we do? I never know how to phrase it,” Aziraphale said with a sigh. He wasn’t human. But they sort of were? “Would it be terrible of me to default to the phrase ‘when in Rome’?”

“Nah, angel. Terrible’s a bit too far. Irritating, sure, maybe cliché, but terrible? Unnecessarily extreme. Hyperbole. Overdramatic. Exaggeration.” Crowley took a sip of his wine.

“Have you been reading?” The thought sent a thrill through Aziraphale even as he said it. Of course Crowley would say ‘no,’ he knew he would, except the possibility his vocabulary might have been expanded through a literary means that might indicate some shared interest beyond their deep engrossing conversations was, well, that was-

“Lot of Buzzfeed articles, angel. Have I showed you them?”

“Once, I believe,” Aziraphale said, tamping down his disappointment. “But I was very, very drunk.”

“Oh, they’re better when you’re sober. Here.” Crowley pulled out his mobile, tapped a few keys, and handed it over.

“What does this mean, what kind of houseplant I am?”

“Just go through and tap the ones you like. It’s ridiculous, humans have been doing it for- well, forever, pretty much, but for decades like this at least.”

“But the point is to know, if I _were_ a houseplant-?”

“Exactly,” Crowley said. He was smiling uninhibited behind the glasses, a soft-edged easy thing that meant he was having a nice time. “I’ll do it after if you like. Compare notes.”

Rather than ask why a human would want to know what kind of houseplant they were- Aziraphale had a vague idea of why himself, actually, and anyway ‘why’ was rarely a helpful line of questioning when it came to humanity- Aziraphale clicked through the quiz. “Oh,” he said at the end. “Monstera. Says I’m hilarious and cheesy.”

“Not bad. Though I wouldn’t use either of those words for a monstera,” Crowley added, an edge creeping into his tone. “Here, then, let’s see what I am.” He did it in about a second. “Oh. Ha. Snake plant. Good one. Don’t even remember if this was u- them. Down there. You know.” Crowley cut himself off just in time.

It made Aziraphale ache. “Yes, well, no matter. It’s amusing, at the very least.”

“Eh. I mean, hilarious, sure, you are, and definitely fit into your groove, go for cheesy there, I guess, but Monstera… I think there’s an exuberance about them. A kind of frantic energy.”

“Alright, well, go on- snake plants are the plain tall ones, right?”

Crowley pulled up a photo and showed him. “These.”

“Yes, you told me even I could keep one,” Aziraphale said, smiling a bit at the memory. “How would you characterize them, then? I think they look…” He searched for a word, decided on, “Elegant.”

“Elegant?”

“Elegant,” Aziraphale repeated. “They’re very striking, of course, with the points and the patterns of the leaves, but when you get right down to it there’s a togetherness about them, a kind of refinement, that’s quite nice.”

“Huh,” Crowley said, staring at the image for a moment before setting the phone down. “Site said they were mysterious.”

“Well, perhaps they are,” Aziraphale said. “Doesn’t mean they can’t be elegant, too. Did it give you another adjective?”

“Unique,” Crowley said. “S’if that means anything, talking outside broad strokes. Can call a variegated fern unique, can’t you, but it still looks like ten other types of fern.”

Aziraphale frowned. “I don’t think that’s quite right. Each plant is different, isn’t it? Each one an individual living thing, most with a different genetic code, even if only just, and no two plants ever grow exactly the same way. And it sounds like snake plants are quite resilient. That’s an admirable quality.”

“Suppose it is, yeah.” Crowley glanced off for a moment. Then, “Monstera’s better, though, more of a challenge. Don’t just stay in line without being told what they have to do. Stubborn, if we’re comparing. Much more resistant to change, pickier.”

Just then their meals came, Crowley’s two rolls and Aziraphale’s four, all but one specially modified by the chef. Oh, bother. He’d have to eat, now, instead of just talking to Crowley.

“Yeah, angel. Think Monstera’s a good fit, if we’re comparing.”

Aziraphale took a few long moments to recover. Despite the lack of conversation, which should have been uncomfortable given Crowley had so much less food to get through, the silence wasn’t unpleasant. Crowley looked at him not as a wry friend might, poking fun, but with fondness, admiration, that exasperated yet enjoying-it-anyway look that Aziraphale knew so well, sunglasses or not, that it felt branded into his mind. It was the face Crowley made when Aziraphale asked to sample every type of sauce, or if he might have something that hadn’t been on the menu in twenty years. It was a look that said, I knew you would do this, and it really is quite ridiculous, and I’m letting you do it anyway because it’s just so _you_ and I like you.

When did people (or angels, as it were) choose know each other like that? When had anyone, ever, outside humanity, taken the time, the effort, to learn, in their individual cases, apart from each other?

Aziraphale stifled a distracting swell of emotion with another bite.

What was one more in a six-thousand-year series of long, unreciprocated days?

Things went on.

Crowley puttered about his flat, walked the streets of London, used the occasional miracle to break down some snooty businessman’s car or scatter an overzealous person’s conversion flyers up the road. He added bits and bobs to the flat, most of them useful but one or two, to his resigned dismay, classifiable by virtue of pointlessness as tchotchkes. He got a new plant, an impressively quick-learning Monstera, and remarked to the others that a new plant doing so well made him wonder if all the others were quite up to snuff.

Aziraphale invited him out every time he noticed something going on that Crowley might enjoy, and Crowley invited Aziraphale out every time he noticed something Aziraphale might enjoy, and they ended up seeing rather a lot of each other that way. As the weather shifted from gloomily humid to properly cool, not a week passed without them seeing each other once, twice, more, even. This being around each other all the time thing was getting to be normal. Crowley wasn’t complaining, mind, just the being in love with Aziraphale bit sort of threw a wrench in things, didn’t it?

Mostly things were fine, blissfully uninhibited versions of what they were before. Crowley sprawling on Aziraphale’s sofa without the pretense of drunkenness, Aziraphale showing up at his door with a box of pastries demanding Crowley apply his palette to them to see what he thought, the two of them lazing on a bench in St. James’s park doing absolutely nothing but soaking up a now-rare bout of sunlight for quiet, easy hours.

But things couldn’t go on like this, surely?

Aziraphale hummed.

They were on the bench again, though it was cloudy this time, and as far as Crowley could see there was nothing around to be humming about. “What?”

“Nothing, my dear.”

And Crowley was supposed to be the flash bastard, yeah, sure. “It’s not nothing, angel, what?” He sat upright on his corner of bench, dipping his shades a little to let Aziraphale know he wasn’t going to let this provocation come to nothing, even if that was exactly what Aziraphale had wanted humming in the first place, probably, just trying to get his blasted attention.

“I was just thinking, there’s more to do, isn’t there?”

Crowley yanked his glasses full off, pedestrians be damned. “What do you mean?”

“We could do anything, my dear. All bets are off. Doesn’t matter what the ramifications are for good or evil, doesn’t matter if we can justify all of it. We’re free.”

“Well. Yes.” Crowley had been coming to grips with that for weeks.

Aziraphale, it seemed, had only just started to consider it. He spoke with that unbridled enthusiasm characteristic of a wholly new idea, one he’d had just a minute ago and wanted to get started on right now, or as close to right now as possible. “But just imagine, Crowley. _Anything_. I’ve been dusting the bookshop, fixing all the parts that aren’t up to code with help from humans, and- it doesn’t even have to be a bookshop, does it? I could turn it into a subscription library, and then anyone who wanted to use the books would have to bring them back.”

“I think subscription libraries fell out of fashion about a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“Fine, then, but do you see what I mean? _Anything_ , Crowley!” The possibilities in his eyes were endless as the universe, shining brighter than any star Crowley’d ever seen.

How exactly was he going to go about telling Aziraphale, if ever he got around to it, that- “I love you.”

“Mmm.” Aziraphale’s expression didn’t flicker. As if he was saying what Crowley’d expected him to say when he contemplated doing this weeks ago- yes, what of it?

Crowley took a breath, wondering why now, of all moments, the better part of his scathingly accurate vocabulary had vacated his brain. “Aziraphale. I’m trying to tell you something.”

“Not trying. Accomplishing. I love you, too, by the way, my dear, I just don’t see what this has to do with the conversation.”

“Don’t see what this has to do-?” What did he mean by that? Was he trying to say that the fact of their loving each other was not especially relevant, that in the grand scheme of things it didn’t change enough to have any impact on the creation of his subscription library or whatever else he or Crowley planned to do with their freedom? Was he acknowledging the truth of it, the constancy, saying, yes, we’ve loved each other for centuries, probably, nice of you to bring it up now, but, again, relevance? Or was Aziraphale-

Ah. Okay. He was overthinking it. “I’m in love with you, Aziraphale.”

“There it is,” Aziraphale said, beaming, and kissed him.

Crowley had had a fair few kisses in his life. None had carried the depth of feeling, the pure enthusiasm, the unadulterated love and adoration of his first kiss with Aziraphale. And their lips had remained, the entire time, resolutely closed. Crowley pulled back a few inches to study the angel’s face, pleased at how this had all gone but still significantly confused as to how it had happened at all.

Aziraphale was still beaming. “I’m in love with you, too. Have been for quite some time. At least since forty-one, or maybe sixty-two, but let’s not dredge up a day like that on a moment like this.”

A disbelieving laugh emerged from Crowley’s lips. His lips that had just touched Aziraphale’s. “ _Angel_.” The word carried all the reverence he’d never really been able to express, not ashamed, but afraid. And now there was nothing to fear. Anything there was to face they’d face together. Crowley was sure of that, had been since the day their side had stopped being a wish and started being a real thing they would both fight for, to the end, if need be.

He just didn’t think what it’d be like- had no idea, how much it would _feel_ \- having this.

Aziraphale was buzzing with energy and love. It was so bright it almost hurt his eyes, surely bright enough for even the humans to see it. “That was quite overwhelming. I mean, I’ve felt, secondhand, what it can be like, but the few times I’ve dabbled with humans I’ve never...”

“What’s this, angel? Humans?” It was a piss-poor attempt to re-establish his usual attitude, but Crowley was feeling so light and floaty and wonderful in that moment that he didn’t really care one way or another.

“Oh, don’t, Crowley, I know you’ve dabbled a fair bit in your time-”

“Not for fifty years, or more. Not really, anyway. Not since...” Crowley shook his head.

There had been a moment. 1960s or 70s, all of it blurred together now. They had both somehow been at a protest together. Crowley couldn’t even remember what the humans were protesting, just that he had nothing else to do that day and it seemed the place to be. He hadn’t expected to see Aziraphale there, last he’d heard the angel was down in Madagascar, something to do with missionaries, except then Crowley tripped on the uneven pavement and went smacking into someone, and when he glanced up to apologize he caught sight of luminescent blonde curls bobbing ten paces ahead of him and forgot that he’d tripped at all.

“Angel,” Crowley called. “Aziraphale!”

He turned, arm held out, and Crowley wasn’t thinking, he just-

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. Surprised. Crowley flinched away. But Aziraphale was smiling, dropping his arms slow, seeming as comfortable with the unexpected embrace as if they really were just two old friends run into each other in an unexpected place. “So very good to see you, my dear. But what are you doing here? I thought you’d be in New Zealand by now?”

Crowley had gone out since then, snogged plenty of humans in clubs when the loneliness and alcohol pushed him past the point of recognizing he’d regret it in the morning. But never again had he _tried_. To love someone other than Aziraphale. To love them even the smallest fraction as much as he loved Aziraphale. He couldn’t.

Not a wonder why, if kissing him felt like this.

Fifty years, he’d said, and he’d meant it.

“My dear, I didn’t...” Aziraphale’s hands fluttered a little, his physical equivalent of being at a loss for words. “Well, neither have I. In longer than that.”

Then Crowley hugged him, because he could.

“Do you think this might be a bit public? St. James’s Park, and all?”

Crowley laughed and pulled back. He could tell by the angel’s expression what he meant; not that their hugging and kissing was an obnoxious thing to do out of doors, but that now that they’d invited the floodgates to open it might be more comfortable to retire somewhere they could relax. “God I love you.”

“Oh, darling, don’t,” Aziraphale said, but he gripped Crowley’s hand, tight, an pulled them up. “Your place or mine?”

“Mine, I think. Expect we’ll be talking ‘til I pass out, don’t you?”

“Yes, alright.”

They held hands all the way there.

When they got in and kicked off their shoes Crowley pulled Aziraphale to the chair, nudged him into it, and said, “May I?”

Aziraphale said, “Of course, my dear,” and flung his arms open.

Crowley wrapped around him as much as was possible without going full snake. “This is nice. Can we just stay like this, all the time?”

“Lovely though that would be, I’m afraid we won’t be able to get much accomplished like this.”

“Nah. It’ll be fine. Stand up, I’ll slide around to your back, it’ll be like a backpack, seriously, animals do it all the time, never stopped them from getting things done.”

“Interesting though that proposition may be, I am rather unwilling to move just now.”

“Oh,” Crowley said, warmth flooding through him. “Alright. Just keep doing this then, shall we?”

Aziraphale hummed.

“You should probably stop doing that.”

“Doing what, my dear?” If Crowley didn’t know any better he’d have taken the lazy note in Aziraphale’s voice for drowsiness.

“Humming instead of talking. Worked out rather well the first time, I’ll give you that, but if it gets to be a habit we might find ourselves in a mire of misunderstanding.”

“I don’t think so. You’ve always been good at voicing your feelings.”

Crowley snorted. “Six thousand years, angel. I had six thousand years of chances, and I think the best I ever did at sharing my feelings, short of today, was the day I fell.”

Aziraphale pulled him fractionally closer, arms tightening around his waist. “Let’s not argue, darling. I’m having such a nice time.”

“We aren’t arguing. And nice, good, because you’re warm, I am going to be doing this a lot.”

“Mmm.”

“There you go with the humming again.”

“Is there any way to get you to shut up?”

“Two ways let me tell you them. First, kissing, but that won’t work nearly as well as anticipated because I’ve been being suave for ten times six hundred years and I don’t think any of the pitiful noises I think I’d make kissing you that much are willing not to come out. Method number two, sleep.”

“Attractive though option one sounds, two is sounding very good right now.”

“So, I think we should move to the bed, because-”

“Wily old serpent,” Aziraphale muttered, and lifted him.

“Aziraphale!”

“What? You’re very light, my darling. Must be buoyed along by our love or something.”

“Ngk.” Yeah, that was eloquent.

Aziraphale carried him to the bedroom, threw the covers back, and settled Crowley into them. “There.”

“Come back,” Crowley moaned.

“Yes, I will, darling, but I need to take my shoes off.”

“When’d I get my shoes off?’ Crowley asked, but found he didn’t care enough to want an answer.

A second later the warm weight of his angel was sinking into the bed next to him, sliding under the covers, wrapping his arms tight around Crowley like he’d neve let go. “There.”

“Yes, there,” Crowley said. “I stand corrected. Forget the chair. Let’s stay like this forever.”

“Even harder to accomplish things, though, isn’t it?”

“Well, if we’re trying to accomplish sleep-”

Aziraphale cut him off with a kiss.

Crowley opened his eyes. “Hello.”

“Hello. This is a very comfortable bed.”

“I knew you’d like it,” Crowley said, smiling, and tucking as close to his angel as it was physically possible to be. “Should I go snake? I can cuddle better if I go snake.”

“Maybe, but you’re colder that way, and I do rather like the arms.”

Crowley squeezed. “Yeah. They’re nice. Think I’ll keep ‘em for a while.”

“Hush. Time for bed.”

“It’s three in the afternoon.”

“That’s never stopped you before.”

“No, suppose it hasn’t,” Crowley said, and promptly passed out.


	4. Chapter 4

Crowley had a feeling it was going to be a very, very good day.

For one thing, he’d woken up all tangled with Aziraphale, who was, somehow, still sleeping. For another, it was actually morning again, if a bit early, meaning they’d slept more than twelve hours and for once in his life the angel was finally, finally getting a decent night’s rest.

Crowley laid there for a while, watching Aziraphale sleep. Watching someone you love sleep was sort of like watching them eat, only different, because Crowley’d never watched Aziraphale sleep before and it was a very new level of vulnerability for him to see on his angel. Soft human things they shouldn’t find pleasant, or enjoyable at all, or even necessary, and they’d slipped into them so easily. Sixty centuries of being there and it was comfortable as an old worn coat, as achingly familiar as the muggy London breeze on your skin.

“That’s very distracting, my dear.”

“Go back to sleep. You’ve got to catch up.”

“Don’t think that’s how it works.” Aziraphale opened his eyes, gazed at Crowley through pale lashes. “Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

“No.” Crowley was half sprawled on top of Aziraphale, who, while doing admirably for his part on the whole sleepy cuddling thing, was for all intents and purposes in a much more normal sleeping position.

“But your poor neck, dear-”

Crowley groaned, flopped off of him, and righted the angle of his neck. “Better?”

“Not particularly. You're so far away.”

“We should get up, we’ve things to do.”

“Things? What things?” Aziraphale sat up, looking suspicious.

“Well, first off you seem to have some grand plans about using the non-destroyedness of the planet to do good, so there’s that, I guess, and then-”

“I don’t have any such plans.”

“What was it you were saying yesterday? About possibility and everything?”

Aziraphale gave him a pointed look. More of a once-over, really. Bit salacious for him.

“Ah. Okay.” Crowley took off his shirt. “M’I getting colder or warmer?”

“Colder, I expect! Put that back on, I didn’t mean- well, at the moment, anyway, I was under the impression that you were perfectly content-”

“Yep, right, taking things slow, sure.” Crowley pulled his shirt back on. “Was that a yes, to future stuff, then? Since we’re, y’know, doing this, just wanted to, er-”

“You know very well I am not opposed, in general, but seeing as we haven’t accomplished anything involving tongues yet-”

“Right, sure, yeah.” Crowley raised his eyebrows. “Speaking of, the tongue thing, were you thinking maybe-”

Aziraphale sighed. “If you insist on having this discussion right now-”

Crowley threw up his hands in a placating gesture. “No, no, we don’t have to, no, angel, s’fine, we can just keep cuddling forever that’s fine-”

“Crowley, please.”

Crowley shut his mouth.

“I was attempting to say that while I have no reservations about doing _anything_ with you, even yesterday was quite overwhelming.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m sorry, angel, course.” Except Aziraphale kept staring at him like he was missing the p- “ _Oh_. Angel thing.”

“Yes. I don’t know if you know this, but, as a being of love- or, well, one whose sole purpose is more directly tied to the emotion than certain entities would have us believe-”

“No, I get it, angel, s’fine. I told you.” Made sense. Wasn’t exactly trying to tamp it down anymore, was he? He could just show it. Just be in love with Aziraphale and not have to worry about the consequences, especially since the only ones he’d even seen so far had all been good ones. Crowley flopped face first onto the bed. Had to crane his neck again, but, well, it was worth it, wasn’t it? “I get it.”

Aziraphale propped onto his side, eyes soft with wonder. “You’re doing it again.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said happily. If Aziraphale could feel love like an energy, like the radiant light that occasionally shown around his own overjoyed form, Crowley had to be- well, at the very least, glowing annoyingly. Side-effect of not expressing one’s emotions for six thousand years, he supposed. “I can get you to sleep now. That was it, isn’t it? Apart from you probably not sleeping at all since the apocalypse?” Made sense, if his love overwhelmed Aziraphale, and if it’d been overwhelming Crowley himself since they finally acknowledged it- and Aziraphale had been with him all night, spent hours and hours with a Crowley who was making no attempt, no, probably the opposite, at moderating his love. ‘Course it wore him out.

“Can’t you feel it?” Aziraphale asked.

“Of course I feel it, I’m just used to it. S’mine, right? I’m just finally letting you see it. I’ve been seeing yours ‘cause you do it all the time anyway, walk around glowing when you’re in a good mood, practically, I’ve had plenty of time to get used to that. That’s fair. Just isn’t- I haven’t been doing it back, all this time. Doesn’t matter how long you need, angel. Long as I can be near you you can take six thousand more years to adjust.”

“You know, sleeping so close might actually make it w-” he cut off at the look on Crowley’s face, took his hand. “No, of course not, my dear, I would never suggest- exposure, that’s the ticket, have it sorted in no time.”

Crowley switched tracks to sincerity. “It really is okay, angel. Whatever you need.”

And then, because he was stubborn, Aziraphale kissed him again. Crowley melted into the gentleness of it, pulled away himself. Five thousand times easier to do the whole restraining oneself bit when he understood _why_ \- and Crowley didn't want to hurt him, not like they had an endless supply of backup energy now.

“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale said.

“Stop thanking me and come and make some coffee. Please. Or, better yet, where’s that place you told me about? If yours is good conjured after that, I can’t imagine what the source material tastes like.”

The source material tasted very, very good. Crowley sipped appreciatively, foregoing his usual peoplewatching in favor of staring at his angel.

“I don’t mean to put you off, my dear, but the staring doesn’t help.”

Crowley huffed a frustrated sigh. “Been staring at you behind these things for centuries. You can’t mean to tell me that- oh.” Crowley knew he had to have been emitting some amount of love in Aziraphale’s direction, because what were the glasses really for if not to give him fond looks he couldn’t completely absorb? Obvious. Except if he’d been giving his angel fond looks for millennia and he hadn’t felt them before, “What’s different? What’s changed?”

Aziraphale swallowed the last of his croissant. “Well, for one thing, I’m more receptive to it since I’m not trying to ignore how I feel about you all the time.”

The implications behind that made Crowley’s insides twist, but he focused on the original question. “That makes it worse? Your own feelings, reciprocation or what have you, makes mine more intense?”

“It does. I’m much more sensitive to them, being I care so much about you, and the fact your feelings are directed at me. Add to that you being hopelessly demonstrative- which, again, not complaining at all, darling, please carry on- and, I mean, you’re right, it isn’t as if you weren’t projecting some of this towards me before, just- rather like the difference between a whisper and a shout.”

Crowley frowned. He didn’t want to be obnoxious, or worse, painful. “I’m shouting it at you? That doesn’t sound very comfortable.”

Aziraphale waved a hand. “Well, you know, early days, expect in time it’ll get-”

Crowley made a concentrated effort to tone down his feelings. “Better?”

Aziraphale looked surprised. “Much. But Crowley, I don’t want you to have to-”

“I don’t _have_ to do anything, I _want_ to. This is a perfectly acceptable level of doting. Really. I’ll just turn it up before bed and then my evil plan to have you on a normal sleeping schedule will be in place.” Crowley drained his cup and leaned back in his chair. “Now, what are we going to do apart from all this heartfelt whatever?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking, after the little things I’ve been doing around the bookshop, maybe it’s time to get an inspector in, have someone take a look at the actual structure.”

Crowley nodded. “Might be nice. Not to have to will everything to stay standing, will customers not to buy anything each time. At least while you’re closed for renovations, anyway.”

“I wouldn’t mind the break,” Aziraphale said. “Awfully hard work, averting the apocalypse. And though Adam’s done a fine enough job, he’s sort of-”

“Reproduced some bits wrong?” Crowley knew his own flat hadn’t been flawless when he’d got back to it. That was the thing; ended up as faithful a copy as he could’ve imagined, not an exact replica.

Aziraphale frowned. “I wouldn’t put it like that. The boy didn’t know me at all before all this, but I found the new bookshop quite-”

“Loyal to a fault you may be, but I don’t think Adam’d begrudge you the chance for a change after everything that’s happened, do you?” Crowley held his gaze.

“Suppose not.” Aziraphale sipped his mocha. “Also imagine it won’t take nearly as much out of me being around you- er- _doing that_ all the time, what with all the spare energy I’ll have back. Add that to laying off miracles and I should be used to it in no time.”

“Sounds like a win-win to me.”

“It is. I’ll be right back, my dear, going to get us some takeaway cups and we’ll be on our way-”

“Finished mine, angel, don’t need to go to the trouble.”

Aziraphale smiled. “Free refills on drip coffee, my dear. Same roast, or a different one?”

Crowley tried and failed not to look ecstatic about this. “The one on the left? I couldn’t decide between them.”

Fifteen minutes later they rounded the corner onto Aziraphale’s street. He’d finished his mocha and was using his now-free hands to gesture wildly about his plans for the bookshop. Crowley hummed along and offered him an occasional sip of coffee, which Aziraphale accepted with the kind of scrunched-up delight typically reserved for having an entire lemon wedge in one’s mouth.

It was an unseasonably bright day, bright enough that between the heavily-filtered sunlight and the soft glow from the new LED fixtures Aziraphale had installed last week Crowley could actually see the extent of what he’d done so far. The place was spotlessly clean, for a start, not a speck of dust anywhere even though Aziraphale insisted no miracles were involved in said dustlessness and that didn’t seem possible but who was Crowley to argue? The books were in a much more coherent order, dare he say one customers might find comprehensible, and rather than some of the furniture being arranged in little reading nooks and others being jammed against whatever shelves Aziraphale used less often, all of the seating areas made sense.

Crowley ran an appreciative hand along one shelf, taking it all in. “This place looks wonderful.”

Aziraphale loitered near the entryway, next to a still-precarious-looking, if much neater, stacked end-table display. “Well, I haven’t done that much since you were last over.”

“When I was last over it was pitch dark, we were both already drunk, and I believe this whole ‘let there be light’ business wasn’t yet operational.” Crowley took a closer look at one of the light fixtures, which had tinted, delicately decorated glass and a warm white bulb, meshing perfectly with the old labyrinthine feel of the place. “Although you did say something about support beams?”

“Yes, well, I’ve sort of been- flubbing those, suppose you could call it. Making the floor of the flat think it’s supported underneath, making the wood of the floor underneath us think it’s strong enough not to undergo the strain from all the weight, that sort of thing.”

“What about Adam? Thought he’d’ve-” Crowley gestured vaguely.

Aziraphale looked guilty. “Well, he did, just- I might have been keeping quite a few volumes in another plane, and when the shop proved capable of staying standing with what was already inside it-”

“How many more?” Crowley asked, half amused, half amazed.

“You haven’t seen the flat, have you?”

“Never.”

Aziraphale gestured towards the stairs.

Crowley led the way up. He’d never used the private backroom staircase before, only ever going up to the upper part of the bookshop. The back stairs were narrow, creaking things, although they felt more than solid underneath his feet. These, at least, hadn’t needed any extra help. But when he turned the corner into what must have once been a kitchen- “Oh, Aziraphale. I didn’t realize.”

“Six thousand years is a very long time, you know. Few of these have been around almost as long.”

There were books everywhere. Piles and piles of them on every available surface, stacks waist high rising from the tiled floor, volumes haphazardly stacked atop the cupboards and overflowing onto every available chair. Crowley could identify, somewhere underneath them, the usual trappings of a small flat- a round dining table that looked maybe Victorian, a mixture of new and old appliances peeking out from between the covers and spines, a ragged floral sofa that looked familiar despite Crowley being certain he’d never set foot up here. “Where d’you keep the old ones?”

“Here-” Aziraphale picked his way around the stacks, moving past Crowley and down a hallway that was remarkably traversable despite the occasional tripping hazard. At the end of the hall he turned left, into what Crowley saw should have been the master bedroom.

There was a pristine double bed in the center of the room, duvet looking pressed and clean despite Aziraphale probably never having used it. One wall held a wardrobe and another a dresser, both easily accessible via the clear floor space in front of them both. This room, too, was full of stacks of books, though these were much more haphazard and much shorter; they looked like they were shifting around all the time, constantly being shuttled from stack to stack in order to free up one nearer the bottom. “You read these,” Crowley said, glancing over at Aziraphale.

“My favorites. The rarest books of prophecy, the strangest misprints. I don’t know how Adam did it, the downstairs inventory’s an absolute mess, but-”

“Love. Can’t you feel it?”

Aziraphale cocked his head. “All the time.”

“But here, I mean. This place. It’s like you said the first time we went to Tadfield. Like the feeling you get when you say ‘this place feels spooky,’ but the opposite. Feels good just being here. I don’t know why I couldn’t feel it before, been downstairs a hundred times, or maybe I did and just didn’t realize it...” Crowley shook his head. “Do you not feel it?”

“It’s mine. And I’ve spent so many years building this place- suppose I got used to it.”

“Suppose you did.” Crowley gazed around the room before his eyes settled on his angel, looking apprehensive and uncertain and not at all how he should have been standing somewhere that was so loved. “And you’ve done a good job, so far. Just need to sort a few things out, place’ll be good as- er- remade.”

Aziraphale’s eyes brightened. “Really?”

“Really. Come on, angel, tell me where everything is.”

Crowley had never taken so much interest in the bookshop.

That, Aziraphale realized, was maybe untrue. There was more than a bit of secondhand rage and a whole plethora of dread tied up in the fire. Most of it was about Aziraphale himself, he thought, but that had the peculiar side-effect of carrying Crowley’s own love over. Because love for a person didn’t just stop with that person; it stretched out, loved the things they loved because they loved them, loved the things that made them laugh or smile or breathe a little easier.

So, naturally, having Crowley around, like this, practically glowing over the bookshop even if he was trying not to be too demonstrative about Aziraphale, was a little difficult.

Er. Well. Aziraphale had done with this self-deception business, hadn’t he? It wasn’t _a little difficult_. It was monumentally trying. He’d been keeping it together given the (pardon the word choice) afterglow from the revelation of the night before, but, even with Crowley making a conscious effort to hold back, being near him was still exhausting.

It had been a bit easier in the intervening hours, what with all the atoms between them and the Crowley calling fifty contractors to help Aziraphale fix up the flat to be able to support the weight of all the books for once, but really, if Aziraphale didn’t know better he’d think the whole thing was giving him a migraine.

Even with Crowley pacing ten feet form him and back again, Aziraphale was exhausted. “We’re gonna need reinforced steel. But it has to still look like it’s two hundred years old. Yeah, wood casings over everything. No, I don’t want to save- are you fucking mad? Yes, I want the best, I don’t care how expensive it is, I want to be able to blow up the oven and not have anything catch- Of course not, you idiot, I’m concerned with building longevity _and_ safety, I-”

Aziraphale laid a hand on his arm. “Might you be a bit nicer, dear? We don’t want them to sabotage us.”

Crowley hissed out a sigh through clenched teeth. “Here, I'm giving him the phone, I’m not even the owner, you know my demands already anyway, I’m sure he’d be more than happy to hear you explaining things any halfway decent homeowner already knows-” Crowley thrust the phone into Aziraphale’s hands.

“Er- yes, hello... I do apologize for my associate, he’s a little- yes, that’s exactly it. And, the thing is- oh? Really? You’d- splendid! Only there were a few other things to work out, before this, and- absolutely, my dear. You’ll hear from us.” Aziraphale hung up, correctly, with a small smile.

“What was that about?” Crowley asked, frowning.

“Might we sit down for a moment?”

“Sure,” Crowley said, suspicion creeping into his tone. “Something the matter?”

“No. Yes. Not- I'm just feeling a bit overcome.”

“Overcome?” Clearly he wanted Aziraphale to elaborate.

“Yes. Overcome, overwhelmed, over-”

“Oh,” Crowley said. “D’you need me to leave?” He didn’t look happy about it, though his hands were on his knees as if to stand.

“No,” Aziraphale said. “No, you don’t- oh, I don’t know, my dear. I’m just trying to figure out how best to do this.”

“However you want. However you need,” Crowley said. Sincere, always. Not even frowning anymore.

Aziraphale felt a flood of warmth in himself, a response to Crowley’s goodness, to his love, and winced.

That got him frowning again. “Angel, if this is hard I think we ought to-”

“No.” Aziraphale put a hand on his arm. “Please. Let me sort out my thoughts a moment.” He was going to need to explain this in a way that was accurate- shouldn't be too hard, Crowley seemed to understand- but the last thing Aziraphale wanted was to hurt his feelings. And he didn’t want Crowley to go away, he didn’t, it just- “Look. I love you. I’m in love with you. You know that.”

“And I’m in love with you,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale took a steadying breath at the onslaught that caused. “Yes. But I think it will take some time before I can- have you ever been in the ocean?”

Crowley’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t protest. “Not often. Once or twice, on a lark.”

“So you have some idea how to swim?”

“Yeah, a bit. Never liked it much.”

“Imagine you’re in a lake, say, somewhere calm. Any time you like you can drop under the water, but there’s nothing stopping you from coming back up, no strong current or gust of wind to disturb you.”

“Okay.”

“That’s what it’s like when I’m alone.”

Crowley inhaled sharply, but didn’t say anything.

“Now imagine it’s a river. Not a rapids, nothing so violent as that, but you know, if you’re not careful, you can end up in trouble. The current carries you along, and it’s pleasant, but there’s hazards. Things to bump into, things you can’t avoid. That’s what it’s like being on Earth after six thousand years.”

Crowley kept listening, glasses long pocketed, gaze boring into Aziraphale’s.

“Now imagine,” Aziraphale said, slower this time, “That you’re in the ocean. Again, it isn’t storming, isn’t dangerous, but out here you know if the waves get too strong you could get lost in them. Not know which way is up. I don’t mean to alarm you, my dear, because I never, not once,” Aziraphale’s voice hardened, got stronger, levelled out into something he knew Crowley would understand to be true, “I have never felt unsafe with you. But the love is like water, sensing it all around me all the time. And being around you this past day, when you’ve let yourself feel it, when I’ve let myself feel it, I’m finding it hard to keep track of which way is up.”

Crowley swallowed. His eyebrows were pulled together in the most terrible way, the one where he was clearly in pain but determined not to let anyone else take it on. “I don’t want to drown you, angel. I've never wanted that. I’ll- I’ll go, can I go? Can we... we should... just tell me. Tell me what to do, I’ll do it.”

God. Crowley knew he didn’t want to be alone, knew the last thing Aziraphale wanted was to see him leave. And yet. Aziraphale heaved a breath. “I think, perhaps, we should go on as we have. You can stay here, or I at your flat, I wouldn’t-” Aziraphale struggled to put the feeling into words, because until a day ago he hadn’t acknowledged all it meant, let alone look at it as more than a side-effect of the almost-apocalypse. “I wouldn’t want to sleep. Or have you sleep. It wouldn’t feel right. Safe. Not having you there. But I think, until I get my, erm, diving certification-”

Crowley cracked a smile. “S’alright. Was sort of wondering how long you’d last anyway. After you told me, I mean. Why d’you think I didn’t hang around you as much, before? Would’ve driven me mad, and I’m a demon. Can’t even feel the surrounding radiant love properly.” Crowley stood.

“Now, wait just a-”

“Angel.”

Aziraphale sighed. “Yes?”

“It’s really fine.” Crowley smiled, wide and genuine this time. “Like you said, being together when we sleep, or when I sleep, that’s- that should be enough. ‘Til you get your scuba license. Gone centuries not being able to say anything, and now we can. Don’t think it’ll be too hard to ease into it, d’you?”

“No,” Aziraphale said, standing, taking Crowley’s hands in his own. “No. I don’t think it’ll be bad at all.”

“Good,” Crowley said. “Permission to kiss you?”

Aziraphale felt his cheeks grow hot. “Crowley, you don’t need to-”

“Yes I do, least for now, no buts, just let me have this one. Setting a good example for the world. Consent is sexy and all that. Touching as a discussed interaction instead of a cultural assumption. Be positively demonic of me, withholding my affections, and angelic of you, for, er- returning them. Something like that. So can I?”

Aziraphale huffed an impatient noise and did it for him. It was still light, tentative, new, but the fact that he could do this, say this to Crowley some other way than longing looks and veiled gestures- that was better than he’d often dared imagine. It would have to do, at least until he could work out how to think about something other than Crowley- or alongside Crowley, anyway- while they were in the same room as each other. “This won’t last forever, you know.”

“Hm, already impatient?” Crowley squeezed his hands and stepped back, turned for the door.

“Incredibly. Have you met me?”

Crowley laughed. “Sure, angel. A few times. Don’t know what’s more impressive, you putting your feelings into words better than I could ever imagine or holding back when I know all you want to do is cling to me like a starfish.”

Aziraphale deemed the occasion worth a sacrifice in personal dignity and stuck his tongue out.

“Yeah, love you, too. Call you later. Have- er- plant things to do. Let me know if you need me to schedule anything for the, er-”

“Crowley?”

“Hm?”

“We can do it later. We have time.” The thought warmed him, filled him with joy in a way little had since the clock started ticking eleven years ago.

“We do, don’t we?” Crowley said. He looked like he felt the same way. “Alright, see you. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Aziraphale called, trying not to deflate too badly when the bell rang on the closing front door.


	5. Chapter 5

Being without Crowley was like- well- to use another poor analogy, it was like being without a helmet on in space.

Yes, it was overwhelming to have him around. And yes, Aziraphale wasn’t sure the sensation of being about to discorporate from too much love filling him up and pouring out of him was entirely pleasant. More equal parts exhilarating and exhausting. But despite that, the vacuum created by Crowley’s absence, by the entire ocean disappearing after he’d been nearly drowning in it, that was, well- almost as overwhelming as the revelation of Crowley’s uninhibited love had been in the first place.

Aziraphale felt bereft.

It was very disorienting, the whole thing. Angels didn’t feel bereft often. He was well-versed in the emotion, especially given recent events. Still, it just wasn’t on. Especially not in a place so loved as London. Honestly, if he didn’t do something he’d just end up standing around the bookshop waiting for Crowley to call, or waiting to finally snap and call him. Knowing Crowley it’d have to be the latter, because of course when Aziraphale would maybe rather be pushed into the deep end for once in his very long life Crowley was choosing to advocate temperance, of all things.

Aziraphale nipped into the analogous river of the city, determining to pick up some type of planner so he’d be able to keep track of any work he scheduled and do something that might stop him thinking about Crowley (or at least _only_ Crowley) for a few minutes. Remembering meetings wasn’t hard when he was at the bookshop most working hours, as he had been for the smaller jobs. And he could always close whenever he needed. Multiple-week-long renovations would undoubtedly be very different, though. They’d require more descriptive signs, possibly with safety precautions writ on, and loathe though he may be to admit it, Aziraphale had grown to like having customers over the past weeks. The trick was stocking books he couldn’t possibly feel deep emotional attachments to (or at least stocking reprints of said books and pricing the originals so high no one would buy them). Point was, Aziraphale was trying to build a customer base for once in his life. Dig his heels into this human thing. Which would require some diary planning. And he wasn’t about to get a mobile for it when his landline was still perfectly functional and necessary for business anyway, not to mention he could ignore it much more easily than one of those infernal pocket bricks everyone but a few stubborn holdouts now considered convenient.

“Morning.”

“Oh, is it? I thought it had to be nearly lunchtime. Beg pardon, yes, good morning to you, too,” Aziraphale said, already weaving towards the counter. “Have you got any planners?”

“Yeah, loads. Stationary store, innit? Or office supply, I suppose, but we’ve got planners. What kind were you needing?”

Aziraphale stopped at the desk and took in the slighty-ruffled appearance and unruffled attitude of the person behind it. “It has to have room for lots of details. I’ve never really kept a planner before, but I know if I do I’ll want to make sure anything of relevance fits inside it. Space for notes, I guess you could say.”

“Right. This way.” The youth led him to a well-stocked corner of the shop and crouched to indicate the shelf second from the bottom. “These are gonna have more pages. More room for detail, some checkboxes, extra pages, all that. Right side are less expensive, less elaborate, and the farther you go this way the more complicated they get. Bottom shelf’s for those make-your-own kits, but I don’t reckon that’s a good idea for someone just starting out. Top ones are cheaper, but less space. Let me know if you need anything else.” And, with a nod, they were gone.

Aziraphale picked up the first planner on the recommended shelf to catch his eye, a fat yellow one, and started flipping through it.

By the time it was actually lunch (“Yeah, just gone noon, funny thing, stomach bein’ so good at tellin’ the time, but there you have it.”), Aziraphale had chosen an A4 pink one with a lovely impressionist floral pattern and fewer pages than the more expensive lot but plenty of lines on each page, subdivided into days, to make note of appointments. When he made it back to the shop he found a pen, flipped to the extra note pages at the back, and began pacing around the shop, identifying things that were being sustained via miracle and jotting them down. Aziraphale munched while he did it, too, of course, though it was just the usual cheese and crackers and fruit he had around, good wine snacks.

Crowley called around four. “Aziraphale?”

“Hello, Crowley. I’ve got a planner.”

“A planner?”

“Yes, a planner. Is it rude to bring it to dinner? Where are we going for dinner?”

“Bit early, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, I would, except I had an awfully small lunch and after doing some thinking I’ve decided that if we determine not to be around each other twenty-four whole hours yet the easiest way to do this is not to have lunch together.”

“Oh?” Crowley sounded amused, and relaxed. Probably sprawling in the throne. He’d kept it, of course, even after redecorating. Had moved it to the conservatory so he could lord over his charges.

“Yes. It seems-” Aziraphale jammed a bookend into place. He really did need to get taller shelves, “-silly to go about it any other way, since you drink coffee every morning and dinner’s usually closest to any activities we may be getting up to of an evening.”

“Sounds good. What people do, anyway, isn’t it? When they, er- stay together? Sleep together? Live together? We don’t actually live together-”

“Call it whatever you like, my dear. I don’t mind. Never have.”

Crowley made a noise through the phone.

“Anyway, I’ve had a light lunch, so I’m fine to meet whenever you like. And if it isn’t indecorous of me, I’d like to bring the planner, show you what I’ve worked out. Since you’ve taken it upon yourself to be my, well, don’t think ‘assistant’ is the right word for it, but-”

“Do the Italian place near mine at five?”

Aziraphale felt a jolt of excitement. “Alright.”

“I’ll pick you up. Love you.”

“I love you,” Aziraphale said, a bit dizzy at it, and set the phone down.

Crowley stepped out of the car at five on the dot, and rushed around the side to open the door for Aziraphale.

“Oh, you really needn’t, my dear.”

“Well I want to. It’s a date, now, isn’t it? Being chivalrous.” Crowley closed the door gently and wend around his side.

No sooner was he sliding in, though, than Aziraphale was turning to him, expression indecisive. “Suppose you could say they were all dates. Or have been for some time, anyway. I mean, in my head, I’ve been using the word for quite a long-”

“Can I hold your hand, angel? Sorry for interrupting.”

Aziraphale got redder than he’d already been, but said, “Well, of course. But how will you drive?”

“Car can do without one of my hands for a while. Besides, it’s not as if I can expect you to be intertwining fingers with me across the table with proper cutlery to attend to-”

Aziraphale huffed out a noise. Sounded kind of like ‘oh’ but with a lot more something in it. Aw? Was that an undertone of awwww?

“What?” Crowley asked, smiling in spite of himself.

“Nothing.”

“Expect me to know you less well now we’re holding hands? Not gonna happen. For example, I looked at the menu, which I know you didn’t because you trust me and we’ve been there before, but I’m convinced I know what you’re going to order and it won’t be the usual thing because they’ve got a seasonal menu now.” Crowley glanced up from his moderate seventy mph to see Aziraphale staring. “What now, then? Come on, communication’s the foundation of any, er, well, that was our issue before, wasn’t it, don’t want to make the same mistake twice-”

“I just missed you.”

“Oh- okay.” Crowley couldn’t manage any more words the rest of the short drive, but Aziraphale did squeeze his hand, and they were at a red light so it can’t have been his driving that caused it, the angel’d just wanted to.

The place was underappreciated enough they hadn’t had trouble getting reservations, which Crowley counted as a point towards human-ness. They were led to a table with the perfect amount of lighting (not so much the shades got annoying but bright enough the angel could probably read his expressions without the aid of inhuman night vision) that was very near the kitchen and an agreeable few spots away from the nearest diners.

When Crowley’d been shooed into his chair by Aziraphale (who insisted he could pull out his own chair, please Crowley don’t make me get angelic in a dim restaurant), he asked, “So? Counting them all as dates now, or what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I just figure-” Aziraphale ordered their wine without breaking stride, then hopped back into the conversation, “-now they’re allowed to be, may as well make the most of it, if you like.”

“If I like? You’ve just given me permission to turn this little dance of ours into a six-thousand-year long courtship.”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows.

“In other words I would love to, I mean, you have met me, haven’t you?”

“A fair few thousand times, my dear.” Aziraphale glanced down at the menu. “Oh! This says it comes from the sous chef’s private garden…”

The meal was lovely, as they usually were, and Crowley was amazed how similar it felt to all the other meals that he was now considering dates, apart from the constant effort to not be dousing Aziraphale in waves of love all the time. Speaking of, “Are we good? Doing that?” Crowley turned his wineglass, back and forth, making the liquid slosh around.

“Doing what, my dear?” Aziraphale was unfazed; they did this all the time, picking up conversations from nowhere.

“Doing, you know- it's just- we've said ‘I love you’ every time we’ve gone away, or got off the phone or something, and-”

“Isn’t that what one does?” Aziraphale looked confused.

“Well, yes, but it isn’t necessarily- you don’t _have_ to say it, every time.” Crowley felt himself blushing and cursed Satan for it.

“Should I say it less? I thought, since you were-”

“No,” Crowley said, free hand smacking onto the table. “That isn’t what I meant at all. I just meant- we don’t have to if you don’t want to. I know you keep saying it back, and there’s a kind of rhythm to these things, need to figure it out, but if you don’t want to say it every time-”

“Do shut up, my dear,” Aziraphale said, reaching across the table to pull him into a kiss.

“Ngk.”

“Oh, no! I should have asked.”

“No,” Crowley infused his tone with annoyance.

Aziraphale looked startled.

Crowley tried to explain. “I mean, I’m not the one drowning in it. I’m fine. You can feel free. Blank check. Come on over.”

“But it’s only fair. You’re asking me, after-”

“Angel?”

“Crowley?”

“Not gonna get me to stop doing it until I’m sure you’ve got used to it. But I guarantee you if I’m not raging over something that kind of contact will never be unwelcome, for me. Never.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips. “It still seems only fair to ask anyway.”

“Dessert?”

“Can we take it back?”

Crowley raised his eyebrows.

“Well, I expect we’d need another bottle of wine, and this is lovely but I’m feeling rather- rather tired.”

Crowley took in his tone, his expression. It said ‘of course I want dessert’ but also ‘I want to get out of here, to go home,’ except Crowley’d been withholding the glowy love thing as much as he had that morning but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still tiring for Aziraphale too and he seemed just to want to relax. “Okay, angel. Got a mostly-empty icebox. Get whatever you like.”

When the last of the wine was drunk they headed out to the Bentley. Aziraphale didn’t initiate contact on the drive home, nor did he say anything, and Crowley cropped it up to this little touch-related tiff of theirs and determined to cut him off with contact the next time Aziraphale opened his mouth to ask.

According to some wordless decision made over dinner they went to Crowley’s flat this time instead of the bookshop. On the way up, it occurred to him that although switching off flats or doing the most convenient thing (his flat’d been closer this time) seemed to be the standing assumption, it might benefit them to discuss it.

After unlocking the door like a human and placing the bag of desserts safely in the empty fridge, Crowley went to the sofa (which, it should be noted, was pale blue, normally very out of character for him but so what if he bought it thinking it’d look nice in the bookshop) and patted the cushion next to him.

Aziraphale sat, hands folded in his lap. “You can let up, you know. Now we aren’t doing anything other than talking, or sleeping, or eating, or what have you, the rest of the night.”

Crowley sucked in a breath, and, releasing it, slowly eased off the hold he’d been keeping on his feelings the past few hours.

Aziraphale sighed as he did it.

“Alright? I can go back to-”

“No,” Aziraphale said. “No, that’s- can I touch you?”

“Please,” Crowley said, annoyed to have been caught out but not sure what the angel was about, and melted when Aziraphale scooted next to him.

The angel settled, placed one hand on Crowley’s thigh, leaned into his side. “I know something’s on your mind, but I need a minute.”

“Take s’much time as you need.”

“Only a minute.”

Crowley soaked in the feeling of being so close to him, his warmth, his love. It was hard to see much of Aziraphale’s expression, tucked as he was against Crowley’s shoulder, but what Crowley could see suggested he was basking just as much as Crowley was. Crowley made a contented sound and leaned his head back.

Once Aziraphale had gotten used to it, he pressed his fingers into Crowley’s thigh a little, said, “Well, what was it you wanted to discuss, then?”

“Don’t have to discuss it. Can just sit here.”

“But I want to discuss it. It’s bothering you.”

Crowley sighed. Not like he could just lie about it. Not like it’d do either of them any good. “Well, I was thinking... this whole sleeping together thing sounds great, it’s just I don’t know if you wanted to... I don’t know...”

“I was rather hoping we’d stay here most nights, given you’re intent on getting me to sleep and my bed is otherwise occupied.”

Crowley laughed. “Oh. Yeah. Hadn’t thought- sure, alright. But what about after?”

“What about after?”

“Well, d’you even... I mean, you could make the space, in the shop, I know you could, and you’ve got loads of wonderful furniture and everything, just... Does it make sense? Staying two places?” Crowley realized it might make a lot of sense, given the whole ‘don’t do 24 hours together until you aren’t drowning Aziraphale’ bit, but, well-

“Are you asking me to move in with you?”

Crowley started a little, frowning when Aziraphale pulled away to look at him. “I don’t know. Yes? You’re more than welcome to stay here, I just didn’t know if you’d want-”

“Alright.” Aziraphale settled against his side again.

“Alright what?”

“Alright, we’ll live here, and I’ll just open up the flat to the rest of the top floor and put more books in it.”

Crowley blinked a few times, processing. Then, “Is that what you want to do?”

“Well, it didn’t sound like you’d make me give up the furniture, and most of it can stay there, anyway, and if it’s the being apart you’re worried about I think my recent attempts to stock things I’m willing to sell mean I’ll be at the shop for at least a while every day. But of course, if you weren’t ready to have me here yet, or if you’d rather keep a place for yours-”

“No, angel. You can stay here. Please. I mean. If you’d like then I- yes.” Crowley was exceedingly grateful Aziraphale couldn’t see him, even if it was more than likely he could feel the blush coming from Crowley’s normally-cold skin.

“Good,” Aziraphale said. “Glad that’s sorted. Was there anything else?”

“No,” Crowley said. “That was all, I think. ‘Cept you might want to bring some things over, right? Clothes, books, anything like that?”

“Suppose I should. What with the miracles being inadvisable. Shall we do it tomorrow? Make an evening of it?”

“S’going to take some time. You think after this you’ll be able to-”

“Really, Crowley. You must trust my understanding of my limitations.”

Crowley sighed. “I do, angel. Just don’t want to go making it unnecessarily difficult-”

“Hush,” Aziraphale said, wriggling free and standing. “We need wine. Something to lighten the mood.”

“The mood’s light,” Crowley said, but stood anyway. “What are you in the mood for, then?”

“Italian,” Aziraphale said, pacing towards the nearest adorned wall. “Go with what’s in the fridge. Have you added to these since I was last here?”

“Dunno. Probably. Definitely more stuff in here, though I didn’t want to get too much, in case...” Crowley trailed off as he went into the kitchen, welcoming the excuse. Was moving in already, after all. Didn’t have to specify ‘bought less shit ‘cause I was hoping I’d end up with some of yours,’ did he?

“Do you miss it?” Aziraphale asked. Crowley looked up from the wine fridge to find him gazing at the old map, a London whose streets they had once trod, reaching out to touch a point here or there.

“Dunno. Not really. I mean, the best bits are still here, aren’t they? The park, your place, and we’ve got a reconstructed Globe, that’s something. Just always thought the city was alive. It has to change. Some parts will stay and some won’t. Parts’ll be better, or worse, but in the end they’re meant to change. And that’s good.” Crowley poured the glasses and handed one over. “Here. Figure we should bring the bottle. Frivolous miracles and everything.”

Aziraphale accepted the glass with a smile and lifted it to inhale the scent. “Vin Santo?”

“S’posed to go nice with cake. Should I get the cake?”

“Let me,” Aziraphale said. Before Crowley could protest something like you don’t even know where I keep my silverware or the less compelling no angel let me, Aziraphale was setting his glass on an end table and walking past into the kitchen. “Oh! You really meant a nearly-empty icebox, didn’t you?”

Crowley set his own glass and the Avignonesi bottle on the coffee table, resuming his old seat. “Yeah.” The entire contents of his fridge, apart from the four desserts they’d brought back (tiramisu, Italian cream cake, chocolate cake, and of course a few canolis), were a small carton of soya milk (vanilla unsweetened, obviously), two very different types of jam (mixed berry something and one of those orange ones, maybe peach, couldn’t even remember, marmalade, that was it), the butter dish (butter was always better cold), three tart green apples (ha ha), and a bottle of psychotically overpriced still water whose presence didn’t need further explanation.

“I’m bringing water. Is the stuff out of here alright?”

“I don’t care. You can use the, er, the in-the-door thing- hang on, you can’t carry all of th-” but he cut off; Aziraphale was already back, with the posh water, two empty glasses, and the cream cake set on a plate with two forks. “Where’d you find that?”

“The tray? It was in the cupboard. Quite useful, don’t know why I don’t use them more often.”

Crowley could not remember purchasing, miracling, or even wanting a tray. “Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m not going to waste a miracle on something as silly as that. There.” Aziraphale set it down, unloaded everything onto the coffee table, and sat next to Crowley, thighs touching, but not so close they couldn’t comfortably reach their drinks.

Crowley decided not to comment on his flat’s apparent omnipotence (this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened and he was willing to bet it wouldn’t be the last) and took a sip of his wine. “What kind of grape is this again?”

“Sangiovese.”

“They’re from Tuscany, aren’t they?”

“Mostly, I think.” Aziraphale lifted the cake plate and held it towards Crowley. “Brought you a fork.”

“Those are dessert forks,” Crowley said. Of course he had dessert forks, he had every type of fork, he’d just rarely _used_ any of them. “We should buy plates.” He took a fork, but didn’t touch the cake. “You first, angel.”

“You have plates. I should buy plates, I don’t even know how I got mine, I think they just appeared.” Aziraphale sheared off a bit of cake and put it in his mouth and made an appreciative sound. “That _is_ good.”

Crowley took some and hummed his agreement. “Been eating more.”

“You mean more than the things you eat because we’re out and you don’t want to be rude.”

“No. I like eating. And it’s human.” Crowley took a large piece of cake to back his point.

“Well, I know you like eating, it just always seemed a bit too much trouble for you.”

“Was, before. Half the reason I did it was to spend time with you. Got more time, now, though. And it makes me feel, I dunno, more... corporeal.”

Aziraphale licked the last of some frosting off his fork and took a sip of wine. “I feel that way, too. About sleeping. I found myself yawning today, and I thought how nice it would be to sleep again, because yesterday morning I just felt so awake.” He laughed. “I sound silly.”

“No, you don’t. Contrast, angel. S’why we get on so well. Understand it. Know how to appreciate it.”

“What was that saying you always loved so much? Can’t have sunshine without rain?”

“Yeah, basically.” Crowley took a moment just to look at Aziraphale, at this bit of sunshine he’d lived through six thousand years of alternating enjoyment and bullshit for and just got to see all the time now. “Always reassured me. Kind of like ‘ineffable’ did you.”

“In hindsight yours seems better.”

“Doesn’t matter. S’long as we’re here.”

They ate their cake, and drank their wine, and when they were finished Crowley shoulder-checked Aziraphale to beat him to the washing up, Aziraphale needed to make a conscious effort to stop his hair glowing so they could sleep. Kind of stupid detail that made him know it was real, this is real, he’s here, you’re both alive, and, yeah, there’s bound to be some crap up ahead, but really, what did it matter, now that Crowley had this?


	6. Chapter 6

In the centuries before the not-apocalypse, Aziraphale and Crowley had a pattern. They’d not see each other for a while, and then they would see each other, sometimes quite often over the course of a single year, because of the Arrangement. Then something would pull one of them away from the city, and that would be that until they next crossed paths. It’d been different in the decade directly leading up to the not-apocalypse. Warlock had necessitated them seeing each other at least once a week, typically more than that. All the zipping around in the few days leading up to Adam’s birthday had been something else entirely- short intense stretches of togetherness followed by nerve-wrenching separations. Then they’d got to breathe a bit, start working out what their new pattern might be now that the world wasn’t ending and they weren’t technically beholden to either side any longer.

Now they’d got through the difficult sorting-of-feelings bit, they slotted from their old pattern into a much, much better one.

The first week of staying together went like this: they’d get up, eat whatever they had or go down to one of the better cafes in the area for breakfast, and then Aziraphale would head to the bookshop- sometimes via Bentley, sometimes with a walking partner, sometimes ambling down there alone or catching a bus or something- and they’d spend a large part of their daylight hours apart. They’d reconvene for dinner in the evening, going somewhere different each night, and six times out of seven Aziraphale insisted they bring dessert back to Crowley’s flat so they could both relax and enjoy it. Although it still felt like plunging into a tempest every time he went from not being in Crowley’s presence to standing as near as he could to him without losing the ability to remain mentally present in this dimension, the effect was lessening somewhat with continued exposure.

It also helped that Aziraphale was becoming more and more comfortable in the flat. He’d brought over the better part of his wardrobe, in addition to the things he insisted on reading once a decade and the ones he would rather not let out of his sight but would do as long as he wasn’t asleep while away from them. Everything else would have to wait until the renovations got kicked off.

“You could just move them now,” Crowley said of the books preventing Aziraphale from walking around his flat’s living room.

Aziraphale gave him a fond, if withering, stare. “How am I supposed to integrate these into the floorplan if I don’t know how many there are?”

“You-” Crowley broke off in a noise uncannily similar to a growl. “Alright, two options. Either you show me this alternate dimension you kept them in before and we work out a way to keep them organized there-”

“They were organized there, they still are here, technically. Same system, different dimension.”

Crowley took a breath. “Or you give all these up as never selling them ever and we put them in the flat.”

Aziraphale hesitated. On the one hand, it didn’t seem right to shove them all back into storage when they’d finally got to occupy space in their own dimension of origin again. On the other, given the recent additions to Crowley’s flat he didn’t see how they would all fit. “Well... Suppose I were to turn this into my personal collection up here, and then keep it closed off?”

Crowley gave him a knowing look. “But you’d feel better if they were with you.”

Aziraphale glanced around the living room. He’d never put these out in the shop for a reason, after all, even if they weren’t quite as frequently-consulted or mind-bogglingly-rare as the ones he’d already moved from the bedroom to the flat- their flat, he should be calling it, now- over the past few days. “How are you so good at reading my face?”

“Come on, angel, six thousand years? And I can fit them all in there. Just need to give me a few hours. Honestly.”

Aziraphale contemplated the offer. He’d developed a complicated system over the years, and the stacks of re-appeared books in the flat were just one of the subgroups created by said system. The first tier, or bedroom books, as he decided to inaccurately dub them in his head for now, were ones he was reading or ones so precious he didn’t trust them anywhere else. Adam’d done a remarkable job recreating these. According to the little he’d discussed it with Crowley, this had something to do with the same willpower that’d kept the Bentley together and restored it so flawlessly. The second tier, or flat books, were all ones Aziraphale didn’t trust in customers’ hands but also didn’t care enough about to need accessible- ancient scrolls, first folios of esteemed but not-his-favorite-poetry, that sort of thing. Before he decided to go into the trade of bookselling properly, there’d been only one other tier of book: maybe, if you’ve a compelling enough reason to want this, and if it isn’t something I’ve forgotten was down here and on seeing it again think I should move to safer environs, _maybe_ I will sell it to you. But now he was attempting to put good into the world through actually selling books, Aziraphale had created a fourth tier, the one including things he either didn’t feel attached enough to be upset about selling or ones he’d recently acquired, through either Adam or one of his post-not-apocalypse purchasing escapades, specifically for the purpose of selling them. These included more commonplace copies of the things he had in the rest of his collection, different translations, books about the books he had (or about the copies universities had, and he’d always been good about making sure they had decent copies if he did), books chronicling times or places or people he’d known over the centuries but had never felt the need to own before, because, well, he’d known them, and thus thought other people may want to know them, too.

Aziraphale took in the room again. He considered how full the shelves downstairs were- nearly bursting, with all the past few weeks’ new additions- and how even if he did make the entire flat into more bookshop, normal laws of physics and interior design would suggest he stop purchasing inventory altogether and move a good thousand or so volumes out of the place while he was at it. “You really think you can fit all this in your flat?”

Crowley tsked from his place on the sofa. He only had half of it to stretch out, given the other half was piled in books, but he looked comfortable all the same. His back was resting against a sloping stack of journals and his legs were hooked over the sofa arm. “I swear. Two, maybe three hours, and we’ll have to buy solid bookshelves, but, I mean- it's a concrete building, angel. Steel frames. Not gonna have trouble with the weight, and when it comes to space- have you ever been to Ikea?”

Aziraphale groaned.

“No, really, it’d be the easiest place to get that many shelves, and we could use our one miracle a day to put them together...” he started waxing poetic about the convenience of prefabricated furniture.

After a few minutes of this, Aziraphale cut in, “Alright, I understand the benefits, and I understand that short of industrial-grade library shelving nothing’d hold all of these in this building, but just because the furniture in your flat’s not all centuries old doesn’t mean we need to embrace-”

“We?”

Aziraphale turned away from the spines he’d been scanning to look at Crowley. “Yes, we.”

Crowley’s glasses were off, expression open, a cautious, uncertain hopefulness strung across his face. “They’re your books.”

“It’s your flat.”

“It’s your flat, now, too,” Crowley said.

How had they got this far into cohabitation without having this discussion already? It had been an entire week, for somebody’s sake! “Both of us live there,” Aziraphale said, trying to convey that he felt it was the most obvious thing in the world, slapping ‘we’ on nearly everything inside Crowley’s flat, now it was both of theirs.

“Yeah,” Crowley said. “So it isn’t just mine. I can’t be solely responsible for the design decisions any longer. Both of us contribute. I can’t say it wouldn’t sting, losing some of that furniture, but-”

Aziraphale hastened to cut in, “You don’t have to lose any of it, I quite like what’s in there. And, like I said, there’s plenty of space, so if there’s anything I can’t stand to part with I’m sure we’ll have no trouble working it into the arrangement of our flat.”

“Our flat.” Crowley’s expression hadn’t changed. Still uncertain hope.

Aziraphale would just have to make his point clearer, then. “D’you ever plan on sleeping here again, at least on purpose?”

“Not really,” Crowley admitted.

“And does our previous agreement regarding sleeping in the same place still stand?”

“Yeah.”

“So. Unless you’ve any objections, and I can’t see my presence changing the place much anyway after how lovely you’ve made it- our flat.”

Crowley waved a hand, pointed to the floor. “The flat.” He then stuck an arm out towards the window. “Our flat.”

“Yes, my dear. I believe that wording suits, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Crowley said. “Okay.” He slid down the pile of books. “I should get going, though. Have time to do the, er- to make space.”

“Do you need a hand?”

“No, I’ve got it.” Crowley slid onto the floor and popped up. “I’ll call when I’m done, yeah? Don’t have any appointments with anyone today, right?”

“None of the proposed work will be ready to review until next week, I’ve been told.”

“Right.” Crowley tiptoed around the piles of books, asked for a kiss, started a little when Aziraphale turned to meet his lips, and then said, “ngk, okay. Love you,” and was galloping down the stairs and out the door and starting the Bentley.

“Love you, too,” Aziraphale called through the open front window.

Crowley hit the horn.

It was not his fault Ikea was the best solution to their problem.

Or, well, it might have been _partially_ his fault Ikea existed in the first place (pretty sure both sides took credit for it), but, at any rate, they needed something to balance out all the period furniture Aziraphale might add but still match the modern classic thing Crowley’d got started in his- their- flat.

Crowley had been hatching a plan ever since Aziraphale announced he was moving in. The redesignation of space he had to do to fix his flat in the first place revealed to him who, exactly, his neighbors were. Lovely woman on the floor below in the single unit, some retired heiress, he was guessing (that place was posh, she left her blinds open), and a bunch of up-and-comers in the units around the lobby. Business types, mostly. The whole building had been redone to a plan he’d fit his place rather easily into. Still, if he couldn’t work out what to do with the space to fit the books in he could always buy one of the neighbors’ places. Some bloke named Rush was on one side, City job, probably easy enough to buy out and he had decent windows. They had this two big units six little units thing going on from his floor halfway up the building. Shouldn’t be too hard to convince a few people knocking down the wall was beneficial enough for that particular property value. Not everybody rich wanted to be on floor twenty-whatever, honestly.

In any case. First thing Crowley did was stand in the main room staring around and trying to envision things in other places. Damned inconvenient, not being able to just miracle them all the different ways without having to go to the trouble of arranging it all manually.

He knew the only solution to his problem would be a whole wall’s worth- or maybe more, that corner wasn’t helping anybody being filled with nothing, was it?- of bookshelves. And Ikea had those lovely glass-door ones. Keep all the dust out. And if anything broke they could fix it or get a new one instead of having to miracle some rare seventeenth-century artifact back together.

Except Aziraphale hated Ikea. So.

Crowley took the Bentley down to the Greenwich location and parked as far as possible from other cars. He told himself it was because he wanted a walk and not because he’d started getting paranoid lest someone decide to attempt damaging the Bentley beyond what a hundred years of inherited powers could withstand.

As usual, the place was crawling with families and new Londoners looking for affordable ways to fill their unfurnished flats. Crowley observed the lead-up to a handful of very good family rows as he ambled through the store, stopping to examine a particular display when some conversation or other really caught his interest. 

He was pretending to inspect a piece of rather banal printwork in a model living room when one woman’s voice rose enough to warrant a shush from her companion. She injected venom into her lowered voice as she continued, “There is no way in fuck that will fit under the window, and you know I’m right!”

“Just because you’ve measured some of the walls- here, look,” the other woman said. Crowley turned a bit to see her holding a measuring tape from the floor to the top of a small end table. “This will absolutely fit.”

From the looks of them the party in doubt was a Type A and the one currently holding the measuring tape was more- well, more like him. Type A held out a hand for the measuring tape, adjusting it with painstaking precision as her counterpart rolled her eyes. “Look. There. That’s the exact height of the bottom of the window moulding.” She then bent down to demonstrate that the table in question was at least five centimeters too high.

But Go-With-The-Flow-Girl wasn’t having it. “You don’t have to measure the moulding. That shite’s three inches thick!”

“If you’re going to make the argument, can you at least stick to-”

“Fine, imperial’s crap, anyway, say eight centimeters.”

Type A crossed her arms. “So the table will stick out from the wall _and_ the window won’t look right, but who cares, it’s just eight centimeters?”

“We need a table and we need the window to open. It’ll still open.”

Type A sighed. “But the higher you go the more you’ll be blocking the window-”

“Not if it’s not past the moulding! And why should it matter, anyway, it isn’t as if- oi!” The breezy one waved at Crowley. “Care to settle a lovers’ spat about a table?”

“It would be my honor,” Crowley said, shoving his hands in his pockets and doing his best (and probably succeeding, he _was_ good at it) to look like he hadn’t been eavesdropping the entire time.

Except, the one who’d waved him over said, “I know you’ve been listening, I’m Mara, this is Winslow- yes, I know, her parents are white, not her fault- which of us is right?”

“Hang on,” Crowley said to Mara, “What makes you think I-”

“Please, you’ve been doing it for ages,” Winslow said, uptight posture relaxing a little. “We’ve been going the same pace through the store.”

“Fine,” Crowley said, sighing and pulling his hands from his pockets to flap them around for emphasis. “But I’ve never seen your flat, I can’t just-”

“You’ve got strong opinions, you’re wearing all black with a metallic belt, which of us is right?” Mara demanded.

Crowley put on a ‘nothing else for it’ smile and pointed a thumb in Winslow’s direction.

“Ha!” Winslow said.

“’Course he’s on your side, he grew up posh, sure he doesn’t have equal appreciation for function and style.”

“Excuse me I’ve just redone my flat and did a pretty good job of it, thanks-”

“But you’re posh,” Mara said.

Crowley shrugged. “I can party with the best of them, but I was in the black market for-” he counted on his fingers, “-six years, I think? Seen all sorts. Spend a lot of time in Soho.”

Winslow waved a hand in his direction like that further proved her point.

“If you’ve just finished decorating your flat why’re you here?” asked Mara.

“Got someone moving in. Need a place for all his stuff. Books, mostly, don’t think he gives a rat’s arse about the other stuff, f’I’m being honest.”

“Neither does she,” Mara said, “Which is why-”

“Hang on,” Crowley said quickly, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “Can’t you just mark this one down on those little sheets they give you and then if you can’t find anything else go with this one?”

Both women looked at him suspiciously.

“Come on, it’s a sensible idea.”

“Fine,” Winslow said. “Last resort anyway.”

Mara smiled like this had been her plan all along.

“Did you say you’ve a lot of books?” Crowley asked.

Winslow nodded.

“In your house?”

She nodded again.

“Which shelves are the best here?”

“Oh, Billy with glass fronts, hands down,” Winslow said. “I’ve got four.”

“Can I open my eyes yet?” Two days had passed since Crowley’d said he’d take care of the books in the flat, and all the day before he’d relegated Aziraphale to the downstairs of the shop, insisting he could handle the transfer himself and he wanted everything to be perfect before he showed him.

“No,” Crowley said. This was followed by the sound of the door being kicked shut. Then, “Come on, you have to stand here to get the full effect…” Crowley took his shoulders and guided him to the optimal place. “There. Open them.”

Aziraphale was speechless.

The entire back wall of the flat was covered in bookshelves. What had yesterday been a blank slate wall with a single piece of artwork and a beside-the-front-door table its only features was now a full-fledged library. It held Aziraphale’s best, things he never would have dreamed of allowing customers to touch, let alone buy, except now instead of being piled neatly in the bedroom they were all in order, spines gleaming. His prized works of prophecy, his cherished accurate historical works, his favorite copies of his favorite works of prose and poetry (a handful inscribed by the authors themselves). The most treasured and priceless volumes in his collection painstakingly arranged by date acquired, Aziraphale noticed with a start, fitting comfortably behind dust-banishing glass doors and far enough into the room that no direct rays of sunlight might threaten the multicolored spines.

He turned to Crowley with tears in his eyes.

“Angel-?”

“It’s perfect,” Aziraphale sobbed, and practically smothered him.

Crowley rubbed his back. “Are you alright?”

“Am I- Crowley- you- by date? Date _acquired_?”

A hint of warmth suggested Crowley was going red, but Aziraphale didn’t fancy moving far enough from him to check. “Well, er- seemed to be how you marked your time, landmarks, you know, could always place an event based on the really good book you found nearest to it, kind of like how I always go back to-”

“Your favorite human things,” Aziraphale said, finally pulling away to wipe his eyes and beam at the man-shaped being in front of him.

“Yeah.” Crowley was definitely blushing, but it wasn’t embarrassed, just pleased.

Oh, he was beautiful. Except arranging by date acquired would not have made any sense to anyone but Aziraphale, so they’d been by subject before that. “How did you know I’d want-”

“In the shop, the other day. S’how you were rearranging them. May’ve spent most of the time skimming through looking for the really interesting ones, but I do pay attention.”

“I know.” Aziraphale felt some of that angelic light threatening to creep into visibility and pulled it back, with difficulty. “You’ve always been more observant than anyone gave you credit for.”

“Not you. Kept letting me save your life, didn’t you? Not like you could’ve made it more obvious there was an angel stationed in wherever with a distinctive appearance-”

Aziraphale pulled him into a hug again. A few seconds later he noticed the painted Queen Anne table he’d found in the street around the turn of the nineteenth century and moved away to take in the rest of the room. “Oh. It really does all _fit_.”

“Yeah, well, it was fine before, but you told me which stuff you were trying to keep so I checked no one was looking and just sort of popped it all over. I moved it around here by hand, but don’t worry, I’ve got the proper, er, stoppers and socks and whatever on all of it-”

“It’s lovely,” Aziraphale said, pacing back towards the front door to see the room better.

Before the room had been a vast improvement on the empty concrete, but it had still been very cool, restrained, like Crowley was afraid having more than one scented candle would ruin the atmosphere of the place. And even though it’d been markedly more comfortable, it had also still been distinctly Crowley. Aziraphale hadn’t minded; he had the whole shop, after all, and Crowl- _their_ bedroom was the only one he’d ever really slept in. But now the place looked like a hybrid of both of them, the crisp clean edges of new furniture contrasting with the knots and whorls of centuries-old wood. The bookshelves provided a perfect counterpoint to the wall of windows on the other side of the flat. Two of the squashy armchairs from the back of the shop- or from upstairs, originally, transported somehow by Adam’s interpretation of Aziraphale’s memory to a place he could use them again- flanked the soft blue sofa, one sporting the faux-fur throw, which had been replaced on the sofa by a warm green and brown tartan one. The painted table he’d noticed backed up to the sofa and housed the ridiculous candlesticks Crowley’d bought last week, dividing the room a bit from the dining area.

Aziraphale also noticed- “That’s my rug!”

“Yeah,” Crowley said sheepishly.

“I don’t mind, I mean, I- all the wine,” Aziraphale said, remembering. “We must’ve stopped a million stains and got out a million more.”

“This is our rug,” Crowley agreed. “Slept on it a few times. Got you a new stain-resistant one for the back room. Got moisture-wicking fibres or something. Delivering it tomorrow.”

“But what about the new chair?” Aziraphale was talking about the one he was suspicious Crowley had bought just so he could sit in it, as he’d never seen Crowley use it himself.

“Bedroom. Thought you might want it there for reading.”

Aziraphale hugged him again. “I’m sorry I keep doing this, just-”

“No,” Crowley murmured, arms tightening around him. “No problem at all.”

Aziraphale had been trying to coexist with Crowley’s energy rather than let it overwhelm him, but he still couldn’t go very long touching him without losing focus. It was just so much. “I really ought to step away if I want to be of any use at all the rest of the day, but I don’t think I can.”

“S’fine. We haven’t got any appointments. Did it like that on purpose. And you locked the shop.”

Aziraphale hummed in affirmation.

“So we’ll just stay here,” Crowley said.

“I think I’d like that very much.”

Crowley steered them onto the sofa so Aziraphale didn’t have to put as much effort into humaning as standing upright required.

“You’re so good to me.”

“Shut up. You deserve it.”

“So do you.”

Crowley didn’t argue, but he didn’t speak for a long time after that.


	7. Chapter 7

Aziraphale awoke a few hours before Crowley usually did and gently disentangled himself to go make a cup of tea.

His entire personal collection greeted him on the walk. God, did he love Crowley. Just kept doing things and doing things for him, and what had Aziraphale offered? A few pieces of old furniture and as many hours a day of close contact as he could stand without collapsing on the spot?

He grabbed a scone while the water boiled, a tried-and-true member of a Sainsbury’s six pack, and popped it in the oven to warm. Crowley’s kitchen was beautiful, and filled with food now that the one of them who ate more often lived there. Aziraphale inspected the plate in his hands. He could get some dishes for Crowley- for them. Crowley seemed not to care about these ones, nice as they were. Probably hardly ever used them. Probably just appeared in the flat one day before he needed them, same way Aziraphale had discovered of Jacob’s cream crackers or replacement receipt paper rolls.

While the water took its non-miraculous time, Aziraphale went around opening cupboards, getting familiar with what was there. The reason they ate out so often, apart from liking human company, was that it gave them an excuse to be together. Now they didn’t need an excuse; they could be together all the time if they wanted, though he had a feeling Crowley would get upset about it. Being around him more had gotten easier, but sometimes Aziraphale snuck ibuprofens when he wasn’t looking. They helped. Overexposure to the kind of love they had was like overexposure to divine light. It caused an ethereal fatigue, the closest immortal beings ever got to a headache short of legitimate danger. Took a while for Aziraphale to understand why it didn’t affect Crowley quite the same way. Yes, he was used to it, Aziraphale never hid his affections, but falling dimmed the ever-present feelings of love all around him. Transformed them from pulsing points of light to easily dismissed, faint static. Aziraphale knew Crowley could still feel it the same way he knew he’d still love Crowley if he fell; you couldn’t burn that out of a life. You could injure it, sure, make it hard to reach the way it was for so many of the humans he’d encountered in his life, but love was a prerequisite to life itself. It was necessary. The inability to feel the distant tug of the Almighty’s love from wherever She resided was the only true difference between the two of them. And you couldn’t love, Aziraphale knew, you couldn’t love as much as Crowley did and not have a firm connection to that light within yourself, even if the connection to the source was gone.

They’d discussed these things at length, drunk and undrunk, human-looking and not, in as many countries and colonies and oceans as they’d ever seen together. It was a frequent theme, a question returned to when Crowley’s willingness to question and Aziraphale’s innate curiosity took hold of the conversation. Eventually they’d reach the dissatisfying conclusion that any greater comprehension of universal ineffability was beyond them; both simply had to trust in their respective faiths, Aziraphale in the Almighty and Crowley in life itself (one and the same, they were always one and the same when you got down to it). They also knew that if anyone was ever made privy to the information it’d be them, because angels were at a bit of an advantage over humans (or so they had been, last time Aziraphale’d checked) and Aziraphale had promised, every time Crowley asked, that if he ever got a clue he’d let him know.

“Angel,” Crowley’s voice carried down the flat, just loud enough.

Aziraphale shut off the kettle and the oven and went back to the bedroom. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

“Cold,” Crowley moaned into his pillow.

“I gave you an extra blanket.”

“Coooooooold,” Crowley repeated. “Why’re you up?”

“I got enough sleep.”

“No. You were cuddling me all day yesterday.” Crowley opened one eye to glare at him.

Aziraphale had gone ‘round Crowley’s side of the bed, but made no move to do anything else. “Suppose my tolerance has gone up.” He hadn’t needed an ibuprofen in a while; with a start Aziraphale realized his tolerance was going up.

“Then come back.”

Aziraphale shot one longing look at his new reading chair in silent apology and started for the door. “I’ll come back once I’ve made sure I won’t burn anything.”

Crowley made a strangled noise but didn’t say anything else.

Aziraphale returned with the smaller of the two trays he’d found in Crowley’s kitchen, sporting a sleek teapot, two cups, and the buttered-and-jammed scone. He’d thrown the two blankets from the living room over his arm for good measure.

Crowley grumbled when Aziraphale threw the blankets on top of him, but made a smug sound as Aziraphale climbed back into bed, tray safely on the nightstand and out of range of Crowley’s wriggling attempts to get closer to him. “You’re back.”

“Well, you _did_ ask, and I can’t expect an overabundance of politeness from a demon early in the morning.”

Crowley hummed and burrowed into his side. He was tilted at a strange angle, head nestled between a pillow and Aziraphale’s waist, one arm slung over his middle.

“Are you comfortable, my dear?”

“M’trying to... yes.” Crowley already sounded most of the way back to sleep.

Aziraphale twisted carefully to pour himself a cup of tea, pulled his current book from the little shelf under the top of the nightstand, and held it open just past Crowley’s head. The other hand he reserved for tea, scone, and carding through Crowley’s unexpectedly soft hair.

Yes, he was definitely going to buy Crowley some dishes. And plants. And those very specific Italian candies that they put on the pillows of continental hotels and the pair of shoes he’d been trying to copy since ‘81 but could never get quite right and one of the bath bombs people were always talking about from the place next to that new café and everything else he’d ever wanted or might ever want, because Aziraphale didn’t care if it took another six thousand years, he’d be damned if he let Crowley go that quiet and still hearing he deserved love ever again.

“Aren’t we?”

“Aren’t we what?”

“Married.” They were sitting around the bookshop not doing anything in particular, apart from enjoying what would probably be the last time any sun at all could be glimpsed through the bookshop windows before renovations and winter shut them up for months, and Crowley had been mindlessly scrolling through his phone when it, like his original declaration, just fell out of his mouth.

Aziraphale looked- well, he looked like he’d been slapped. “When?”

Crowley managed to keep his nonchalance in place. “Oh, dunno, few times. There was the one up in Cote D’Ivoire. Then there was an island, a Spanish one, I think, or it was at some point, and then-”

“But none of that- it wasn’t- we aren’t human.” Aziraphale’s expression was caught three ways, between uncertainty, hope, and caution.

Crowley bypassed the ever-useful ‘so’ in favor of a more recent argument. “May as well be.” They’d been living together, what, two weeks? And they’d been the only constant in each other’s lives for millennia, don’t forget that.

The caution won out on Aziraphale’s face. “That may be so, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are two celestial- infernal- two ethereal beings and have none of the traditional human imperatives- that is to say, money, politics, reproduction, what have you-”

“Those aren’t the only reasons. People do it because they like each other.”

Aziraphale huffed and put his book on the table, turning so one leg was fully tucked up on the sofa and brushing Crowley’s. “Well, alright, yes, but I’ve liked you since the Garden of Eden, doesn’t mean I’ve got to go and put a ring on it.”

Crowley dropped his phone to be swallowed by the sofa cushions and gaped. “Did you just quote Beyoncé at me?”

“Listen,” Aziraphale started, serious enough to bring a swooping sensation to Crowley’s- well, everywhere, “you and I are simply not human. We’ve kept our powers despite the odds, and need them to survive, besides, and at any rate, we’re sexless.”

“Doesn’t have to be. I mean them, the humans, doesn’t have to be any of those reasons. Sometimes it really is just liking each other. Wanting to be partners. Do life together. Not to mention the other bits- that is to say, _our_ bits- well, they really aren’t much trouble to manifest, if either of us wanted. Got six thousand years of experience.” When Aziraphale looked woozy, Crowley hastened to add, “Not, you know, not that either of us has, you know, necessarily become not sexless very often, nor do we ever have to, but if we _were_ to- reason no longer exists, is what I’m saying. Like getting your wings out when no one’s around. Reason no longer exists to hide them. Not gonna make much difference if we do have bits, down here. No one to care anymore, ‘cept us.” Crowley was already berating himself in his head. Going on about bits and- honestly, being more human was fine, that was all understandable, but he had been the one insisting they sit at opposite sides of the room most of the time so Aziraphale didn’t get dizzy, why’d he have to go and bring physical contact into this when it wasn’t about that _at all_?

Aziraphale’s voice was quiet, expression dialed down to unreadable. “Do you want to be?”

“What?” Crowley’s heart was pounding unnecessarily fast.

“Married.”

Crowley let out a breath. Yeah, okay. So he hadn’t got hung up on the touching bit, that was good. Just the important part. How’d Aziraphale always know what he meant even when he was making a complete fool of himself? “Of course I do. Wouldn’t have said yes all those times, no matter how drunk I was. Being with you’s all I ever wanted, really.”

“Alright.” Aziraphale smiled and held out his palm, upon which he’d just miracled a simple white-gold wedding band. “Will you do mine?”

“Are you serious?” Crowley felt like the world was wrenching. Like the apocalypse, actually. Close to it as anything he’d ever felt. He sat up, rearranged himself so he was nearly sitting in Aziraphale’s lap, took his face in his hands. “You mean it?”

“Of course I mean it. We can do it properly later, if you like. Should go and pick them out, really, if we’re being human about it. No telling what’ll happen to these if we don’t, probably start changing material or something. Though, again, no way really more proper for us than the ways we’ve already done it, I don’t think. I mean, before, and I assume now, if anyone’s remotely emotional enough up there to want to, it’s sort of just an instantaneous thing.”

Crowley laughed, disbelieving. Because of course that was how they did it upstairs, didn’t they, you just looked at someone and said, oh, I’m in love with you, and they said ‘me too’ and that was that. So of course there was no other way for the two of them to do it, no other way but being drunk and completely oblivious to each other like they’d always been. Pretty on brand for them. Of course they’d have done it on a whim and then just kept on. Even though they both wanted it to be real. Jesus. “Angel,” Crowley’s voice broke. “Did you just propose to me?”

“Think I accepted your proposal. Or, we didn’t ever do it properly, just… jumped straight to the married part, I suppose. Though, again, that’s a little more fitting for immortal beings, at least as far as I know.” Aziraphale’s eyes were bright.

Crowley let out a strangled laugh.

Aziraphale frowned. “If you didn’t want to go about it like this, I-”

“Of course I want to!” Crowley was close now, in his face, this close to reaching out and kissing him but knowing it’d either be the best idea or the worst one, since this was plenty overwhelming for the moment and Crowley knew his self-control was at an all-time-low, thank you very much. Couldn’t imagine how obnoxious he was being, pouring out love at Aziraphale like- he _felt_ so much, Crowley couldn’t remember ever feeling this much in his life. He took in Aziraphale’s calm expression, his soft smile, and realization dawned. “You knew that, you just said it to get me to say something, you ridiculous- oh, come here!” Crowley said, and kissed him anyway.

It was messy and desperate and there were teeth and tongues, but Aziraphale responded in kind, fingers digging into Crowley’s shoulders as he clutched his face and tried to get closer.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said when they parted. He was flushed and amused and his gaze was lingering on Crowley’s lips like he hadn’t wanted to stop.

“Yeah, _oh_ , fucking… are you alright?” Crowley was worried, soon as it was over. He'd been the one to break it, eventually. It had occurred to him that they’d never kissed like that before and his angel was definitely lost in it and it would be best if Crowley took a minute to make sure he was still coherent. They’d kissed. A lot. But he’d never sprung it on Aziraphale like that, more a request than a question, or a demand, really, all hot and needy like... well, like he wanted to keep going, which of course he did. And Crowley was practically puking love at him already, wasn’t he? He couldn't just go kissing Aziraphale like that, even if they were married in two existing countries and one pirate republic. Even if Aziraphale was looking at him like maybe kissing was not close enough and maybe they should just climb into the same corporation instead.

“Perfectly.” One of Aziraphale’s hands moved up to his own face, one finger touching his lips, smiling.

“I didn’t mean to- well, I did, just- you know how I get,” Crowley said. Because Aziraphale did.

Six thousand years of fondness stared up at him. “I know, my dear. Of course I know. Passionate.”

Crowley made a noise between a laugh and a sob. “Yeah. That’s me. Can’t keep my bloody mouth shut, always losing control.”

“You didn’t.” Aziraphale reached, deliberate but slow, time enough for him to pull away, for Crowley’s wrist, clasping it firmly and gently at once. “You don’t.”

“Of course I do, s’how I ended up falling in the first place.”

Aziraphale looked and sounded as sure of anything as Crowley’d ever witnessed him. “No. You _decided_. To do that, same as you decide to do everything. Because it’s what you want to do, and it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, but because you’ve run out of reasons not to.”

Crowley offered half a smile. “Think you’re being overly generous, angel.”

Aziraphale sighed, opened his palm where the ring still sat. “Can I? So you know?”

“Already do,” Crowley said, meaning it. Held out his hand anyway. “I owe you one, yeah? Here-” he miracled a similar band, a simple ring of gold. “So you know, too.”

“Already do,” Aziraphale echoed, and let Crowley slip the ring on. “There. Can we do something else, now? Sit on the sofa and turn on some stupid show and pretend we haven’t been idiots for this many years?” He’d finally got a TV to put downstairs in the bookshop, to keep up on the news, and it was tucked away near the big squashy sofa and his rolltop desk in that part of the shop that’d always be theirs, even if it wasn’t the back room.

“Sounds wonderful. You’ll lean on me, properly, though, yeah? None of this ‘room for the holy ghost’ stuff.”

Aziraphale did him one better and fell asleep on him.

Things were going too well.

The bookshop renovation was in full swing, the weather was the perfect brisk temperature that allowed for hats and scarves but wasn’t quite chill enough to make Crowley moan during a walk, and they were married. Or sort of. Picking out the rings on Tuesday, they had an appointment. The world was doing alright (mostly) without them. Nobody had started a nuclear war or invaded anywhere unjustly or struck up a hopelessly misguided religious crusade in a poorly-veiled attempt to justify one of the former two actions. And Adam was good. He’d called them on Anathema’s phone just a few days ago, and she was good as well, everyone was good, they’d been invited to Christmas even though it was only just November and Aziraphale said they were always welcome to come up to London.

Anathema took him up on it, stopping in for tea when she was on a trip to restore some of her occult supplies. “Old habits die hard,” she explained. “And some of this stuff actually helps, even Newt says so.”

“How is Newt?” Aziraphale asked.

“He’s fine. Even got a job in Waterlooville. Bit of a drive, but he does love that car, and Tadfield isn’t exactly an employment hub.”

Aziraphale wiggled around in his chair and shot a sidelong glance at Crowley before saying, “I know the town- Lewis Ganson lived there!”

“Is he, um-”

“Magic writer,” Crowley said easily. “Wrote more books than almost anyone else.”

Aziraphale looked between him and Anathema, wondering whether it would be rude to drag Crowley into his lap. Probably.

“Did you know him?” Anathema asked.

“Not as well as I’d have liked, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale said, tearing his eyes away from Crowley and taking a sip of tea. “Seemed a lovely chap, the few times I met him.”

“There are so many people I want to ask you about but am afraid I’ll regret what you tell me,” Anathema said. She chose a biscuit from the plate of them on the coffee table, which held a selection of holiday-themed iced confections that Crowley had picked up while he was ‘down checking on the Bentley.’

Before Aziraphale could advise Anathema either way, however, Crowley ambled over to the bookshelf and said, “Hang on, here, just the thing,” and pulled an incredibly accurate but relatively recent history book from the shelf. “This one’s good. Got about six world leaders in here and she was right about five of them.” He only passed the book to Anathema after getting a nod from Aziraphale.

Yes, it would definitely be rude to pull Crowley into his lap right now.

“Accurate information on Alexander the Great? No way! I mean, I know it exists, accurate stuff about him and all the other borderline mythical figures, it’s just- I always thought most peoples’ shots in the dark were missing and the only things likely to be true were the ones everybody agreed were facts.”

“Normally that is the case,” Aziraphale said by way of distraction from his demon, “though I find another rule of thumb is that anything that isn’t blatantly sensationalist, and also written by a woman, tends to be much more accurate.”

Anathema was paging through the book with acceptable care. “Are you a scholar of history? I mean, I know you were around for most of it, but that doesn’t necessarily give you an incentive-”

“Ah, of course not,” Aziraphale said too quickly, noting Crowley’s smile at his enthusiasm and trying not to blush about it, “Most immortals just check on the records if they care.  
Don’t really see a point in keeping track so long as it doesn’t impact them. The few who spend enough time down here to be interested develop specialties. I myself have a bias towards old friends. Though we were generally alive for most of these events, that doesn’t mean we were anywhere near them, let alone directly involved. Regret to say that our involvements were often very Western, if not always English.”

“Huh. Suppose that explains it.”

Aziraphale thanked the jolt of unease this revelation provided because it finally yanked his mind off Crowley’s jeans. “Yes. I suppose it does.” It wasn’t like they hadn’t noticed, Western cultures colonizing the rest of the world and fucking everything up for them, but Aziraphale had always figured that the greatest concentrations of power, and thus the greatest concentrations of evil, warranted the most attention, or, at least, that’s the way Heaven and Hell must’ve seen it if they kept stationing him and Crowley in the same places. It hadn’t occurred to him what role his and Crowley’s presences may have had in the causality of historical events, since they were clearly less certainly independent of angelic and demonic will than initially assumed-

“Angel.” Crowley’s hand was on his shoulder, light touch, reassuring, and his voice probably too low for Anathema to hear.

“Sorry,” Aziraphale said, blinking himself back to the present. “Got a bit lost in thought, there.”

“Are you alright?” This, surely, was said too low for Anathema to hear; Aziraphale could barely make it out himself, and he had centuries of practice.

“Fine, my dear.”

“Do you need a minute?” Anathema asked. “I have, like, six other things to buy, I can come back later-”

“No,” Aziraphale said. “Really, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Your aura has looked a little wobbly.”

Aziraphale gave her his best customer-repelling look.

“You shouldn’t get angry at people for caring about you, angel,” Crowley said, entirely too gentle.

“I’m not angry, I- will you please just believe me when I say I’m fine?”

Anathema sighed. “It actually might be helpful if you gave me some idea of your feelings. I mean, you have no obligation to, your auras are just so different from human ones. If you ever wanted me to check them in the future...”

“Check them? Why would we want you to...?” Aziraphale trailed off, set his tea down, and stared up at Crowley, suddenly suspicious.

Crowley threw up his hands. “What? You can’t blame me for wanting to make sure you wouldn’t-”

Aziraphale knew exactly what he was about, and it was _not appropriate_. “My falling is none of your business short of how long it takes me away from Earth, thank you very much, and-”

“They wouldn’t just take you away, angel, they’d- they’d- I don’t even know what they’d do, we don’t know what they’d do, we can’t know they wouldn’t experiment on you or someth-”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Anathema broke in, cutting short Crowley’s broken plea. “Is something going on? Because it would be really helpful if I knew if something was going on, given I’m the only occult power near enough to protect Adam if it does.” She set her tea down and laced her fingers together, voice turned to steel.

Crowley ran a hand through his hair and sat on Aziraphale’s chair arm. He took a breath, voice much steadier when he replied. “Nothing’s going on that we know of. We were just warned not to use too much energy, now that our loyalties aren’t aligned with the sources of that energy. Or according to Gabriel and Satan, haven’t actually heard anything direct from the source. It’s Her energy if it’s anyone’s, you know?”

“Yes, right, Her being God?”

“Exactly.”

Anathema frowned. “So you don’t think they’ll bother you if you don’t provoke them but you really have no idea?”

Aziraphale felt Crowley wince next to him. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“We don’t think they mean us any harm,” Aziraphale said. “Policy is generally to ignore things that don’t fit the narrative, as most large organizations are wont to do. These two are no different. It seems as long as we stay out of everyone’s way they can’t be bothered to get more involved. Enough problems of their own to sort out at the moment, what with the, well- you know.”

“I see,” Anathema said. “And all of this has nothing to do with Adam, or the Them, or anybody else personally involved, like Newt or Shadwell or Madame Tracy?”

“We don’t think so,” Crowley said. “Though they might come for them eventually. Or not them, and not _the_ Them, just- Adam. He’s the only one anybody still has reason to want anything from. And my money’s on upstairs if someone does come knocking, because after what he said to his infernal father, I’d say the only thing could come of that is an apology, and, well... sure you’ve an idea how well that would go.”

“We should have a plan,” Aziraphale said. “Just in case.” He realized that things were not too good to be true, that there was still something to worry about even if everything was fine right now, and the thought caused an odd amalgam of anxiety and reassurance to rise in him. Anxiety because they didn’t know what would happen next, but reassurance because he knew whatever it was he and Crowley could face it together. They’d gone ages without knowing how things would go. It was only the last decade that’d been a remotely sure thing, and even that hadn’t turned out according to any discernible pattern. Aziraphale felt his mood even out and smiled at Anathema as she noticed. He reached out to take Crowley’s hand. “It never hurts to have a plan, even if we know better than to rely too much on it.”

“I agree,” Anathema said. “Where should we start?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was one of the first things I wrote the 'aren't we married' bit I love them so much


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for a whole-ass anxiety attack. Click to notes at bottom for a summary. Can skip this one if you hafta, posting nine right now

Planning for the eventual curiosity (or revenge) of Heaven or Hell ended up being easier than Crowley’d thought.

Granted, it was easy because none of them had the slightest clue what further ethereal intervention would look like. They’d called Adam, and he hadn’t heard anything, and he even said he found the weather disagreeable last week so that whole willful off-switch on the powers had definitely worked. No contingencies to plan for there except include Adam in their plan, which was: if something happens, call.

They’d told Anathema what to expect in terms of ethereal calling cards (Hastur likes setting things on fire, Gabriel’s a git) and found out that she really was incredibly well-versed in the occult. Between Aziraphale’s extensive library and Anathema’s knowledge base, both locations had someone that could set up a barrier long enough to get in contact with other concerned parties, and it wasn’t like Tadfield was bustling enough or Crowley not clingy enough for separation to be an issue. If anybody left the immediate area they would let each other know in advance.

Not much else they could do.

The two of them were sitting in a deserted but very nice wine bar, having a snack and a discounted glass of something not as rich as Crowley would’ve liked but still decently red (because it didn’t matter how much money he had they wanted to try this place and the lunch discount was a good excuse). Aziraphale was on a tangent about love poems and how he’d always thought they made terrible wedding vows. As an angel he’d been invited to rather a lot of them. Crowley was less surprised by this than his own two hundred-odd wedding invitations, which, though plenty had made sense in terms of ingratiating himself in the lives of interesting people, said interesting people can’t have known him all that well if they thought his attendance was inspired by anything other than the open bar. They had fifteen minutes until they were expected at a very prestigious jeweler's to pick out their rings, and it was occurring to Crowley for the millionth time that day that Aziraphale had agreed to marry him.

“What are you thinking about, my dear?”

“How much I love that really offensive Shakespeare sonnet.”

Aziraphale tsked.

“Fine, how much I love you.”

“Oh, don’t, I-” Crowley caught the faintest glimpse of glowy angel light as Aziraphale wrested it back under control. “I’m trying to distract us. We can be romantic when we get home and nobody’s around to see. Don’t want to go impacting someone so much we have to miracle them to forget.”

Crowley smiled as much as he could while doing the emotional energy equivalent of holding his breath.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said with an exhale. “I love you, too.”

“Hey!” Crowley lost a little ground with the love containment.

“Sorry, sorry! Sometimes I wonder... d’you think snapping back to our regular forms might help? I haven’t done it in so long.”

Crowley considered this. It had been so long since either of them had done it, he’d guess neither of them had any idea what their noncorporeal forms looked like. Surely not a serpent or a many-eyed creature, after so much time on Earth, and with everybody modelling themselves on humans in some strange competitive in-Her-image nonsense... Might just end up the same, with a few minor differences. Visible emotions, possibly even thoughts, willing as they were to share them. Probably slightly different bodies. Still human-ish but not quite. Crowley might have fewer bones. Be scaly. Aziraphale might levitate. Have longer hair or something. “Yeah. Think that actually would help.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. “Really? Do you think it’ll be alright?”

“Yes, angel. I want to. Haven’t popped out of the body, even in just a metaphysical sense, in a while. Be nice to stretch out, get a better sense of how human we are. Might even help us learn which miracles will tip them off. Learn how to mask it, maybe, do more unnoticed.”

“And on that happy note,” Aziraphale said, “The time, my dear?”

“Time to leave,” Crowley said with a glance at his watch, throwing a tip on the table and extending a hand for Aziraphale. It was maybe inadvisable, but he was going to hold his hand on the way to pick out their wedding rings, bless it all.

They were greeted by an expert salesman, descendant of he who had sold Crowley the watch (or the idea of the watch before its commissioned creation). Aziraphale’d said he didn’t care where they went and he trusted Crowley’s taste, which, okay, contradictory statements, Crowley’s taste was well-suited to someone who cared, had the angel seen him, never mind. Crowley’d looked some fifty odd years ago at this same exact shop for this same exact reason just in case. Never thought he’d actually be there doing it.

“Mr. Fell, yes, Mr. Crowley’s told me so much about you. He said you likely favored gold?”

“I think so, yes.” Aziraphale clasped his hands together, drawing Crowley’s attention to the missing angelic signet ring, gone since the week after the not-apocalypse, and glanced up. “What about you? Bit pale for gold, I should think.”

“Wouldn’t mind one of those dark numbers. Kind of black shade. Stand out, match everything I wear.” Crowley had not, not at all, not since that stupid color of precious metal had been invented, been thinking about this very second. Absolutely not.

Aziraphale smiled. “I think that would suit you marvelously.”

“Perfect. Did you have a theme in mind- a style, or a pair of matching bands, perhaps?”

“We, er-” Crowley glanced at Aziraphale’s blank expression and back to the salesman. “Haven’t really thought that far, to be honest.”

The man nodded. “If you’d like to peruse the showroom, I would be happy to compile some choices for you. Please let me know if you need anything.” He retreated behind the counter and started doing his thing.

Crowley reached for Aziraphale, keeping the grip on his hand loose, and led him over to the nearest case. “Did you have any ideas?”

“Not an inkling,” Aziraphale said. “I rather like that one.”

Crowley sighed down at the silver-and-diamond number Aziraphale was pointing to. “Did you tell him you liked gold because you actually like it, or because you were being polite?”

Aziraphale looked mildly offended. “My wardrobe’s warm-toned, Crowley, you can’t think I’d be so daft as to think silver would make an attractive match. I meant the design, look.”

Crowley looked. “Shape or the gem pattern or both?”

“Both.”

“And you’re sure you like the idea of quite that many diamonds?”

Aziraphale sighed. “Again, Crowley, I was stating an opinion- I like that one, too, for example, but I wouldn’t dream-”

“Good, because you know even in nice rings like these the diamonds eventually fall out? So ten, eighty years from now, you’d be going in to get it replaced, or repaired, and I know that doesn’t seem like a pain in the arse but it could take months, angel, and you-”

“Gentlemen?” The salesman had come up to the case they’d been inspecting with one of those velvet jewelry-inspection trays. He’d paired off ten sets of rings, all in their colors and all looking completely different (though not necessarily from each other, some were complimentary and some identical). “I thought I would go with a broader selection to help narrow your idea of what you were looking for. Shall I give you a moment?”

Crowley peered at him from behind his glasses. “I think you’d better not. Expertise, and all that.”

The man gave a ‘fair enough’ sort of nod and stood back to let them lean in close without feeling weird about it.

Crowley had to hand it to him, this salesman knew his stuff. What was his name? Didn’t it start with an H? Henry, Harold, something like- oh. Aziraphale hadn’t stopped staring at that since he’d set eyes on it. Crowley pulled it from the tray and handed it to him.

“Comfort fit, slight polish, with a single rough-cut yellow diamond,” Harry explained. “It’s an unusual preference for a diamond, though very beautiful. May I ask what drew you to it?”

“This rough-cut diamond, it’s... it reminds me of him.”

Crowley looked between Aziraphale’s expression and the ring, the amber-yellow diamond in it, feeling the bubbling fizz of their comingling energy, and then turned his eyes back to the tray and cleared his throat. “So we’re doing that, then, are we?”

“What d’you mean? Of course I would want my wedding ring to remind me of you, honestly, Crowley, I cannot understand why-”

“This one,” Crowley said, pulling a simple dark number from way across the tray and holding it up. “I like this one because it reminds me of you.”

“Slight edge, sandblasted, with a single solasfera-cut white diamond,” Harvey said. “An unconventional choice, given the contrast, but an absolutely brilliant cut as well. Is it safe to guess your reasoning similar?”

“Wouldn’t say the band itself reminds me of him, I just like the band, but this diamond is...” It was soft, if a diamond could be soft, threw the light in such a way that it didn’t look like one of the hardest materials in the world even though Crowley knew it was. “Reminds me of him, yeah.”

Aziraphale’s enraptured gaze was bounced between the ring he’d chosen, which he couldn’t look away from, and Crowley’s face, which dared the angel to respond to his choice the same way, and finally back down to Crowley’s ring, as if confirming the resemblance.

Crowley cleared his throat, “We’ll take them. Fantastic job, sir. Just need to do the sizing, I expect?”

He and Hayden sorted it all out while Aziraphale stared on mutely, not saying a word but not removing his eyes from Crowley, either. Really sort of distracting. There were constant waves of adoration rolling off him, not strong enough to knock Crowley over but damned close. Was this how the angel felt _all the time Crowley was around him_?

Once Hector had assured them their rings would be custom-fit, ready as soon as possible, and paid up via Crowley’s bank card, Crowley placed a gentle hand at the center of Aziraphale’s back and steered him outside. “Feeling okay, angel?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, voice unsteady. Crowley could feel the love pressing at his edges, making the plane with their wings blindingly bright, threatening the boundary between dimensions as it flowed between them. Aziraphale sounded breathless; of course he could feel it, this was so much even Crowley felt overwhelmed. “Yes, I... Can we please go home now?”

Crowley gunned it back to the flat and got them upstairs as fast as he could.

Getting through the door was a relief, finally being able to let go of all pretense of humanness and just _be_. Aziraphale’s metaphysical lungs were filled with water but it felt so good, just feeling Crowley like this, just loving him and feeling it back, he wanted more. “May I touch you?”

“What?” Crowley blinked, like he hadn’t been present for any of their arguments regarding Aziraphale’s insistence he ask, too.

“I’d like to touch you, if you-”

“Oh, yeah,” Crowley said, and flung his arms open, and Aziraphale launched into them. The contact made it better and worse. Crowley laughed. “Hello.”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Of course you c-” he was cut off by Aziraphale kissing him.

Still wasn’t enough.

Aziraphale surrendered himself to feeling. Let the love flood back and forth between them like breath, necessary in a way breathing never had been. He set to tracing every inch of Crowley’s mouth, to memorizing it with his tongue, and Crowley let him, kissed back like he was doing the same. Crowley let it go on for a while, until Aziraphale was dizzy, until it felt like the ground had fallen out from under him a long time ago and the only thing keeping him anchored to anything at all was continued contact with Crowley. It was wonderful. Not good enough, but wonderful. Until Crowley pulled away and said, “Hey, alright, slow down, what’s going on?” in a voice that was much too gentle and only a smidge overwhelmed with lust.

That wouldn’t do at all. “I want to kiss you.”

“Yeah, gathered that, but didn’t think we’d landed anywhere new on the overflowing energy accidentally exploding us part last time we discussed it.”

“We haven’t,” Aziraphale said, pulling him closer by the collar but not initiating contact. “Hardly discussed it at all, just been doing this and- and nothing else.” Aziraphale hoped the frustration in his tone came across the way he wanted it to.

Crowley’s expression was guarded. “We were talking about seeing what our true forms were, which I will do, I stand by that, but as for this ‘else’ you’re mentioning-”

“Anything. All of it.”

Longing and pain fractured across Crowley’s face. “Aziraphale-”

“I haven’t done anything, no more than kissing, before you, but for the first time since getting this body I want to. I want to do everything with you. I want to see your true form, of course I do. I want to know you all the ways there are to know someone. In this human corporation and out of it and- everything. I’d do anything with you. Anything. Anything you want.”

“Would you?” The caution was still there, but now Crowley was looking at him with a stunned sort of disbelief, like there was some novelty to the idea of Aziraphale wanting him.

Aziraphale had wanted him for centuries. “Would I what?” His heart was beating entirely too fast.

“Want to try things with me? Human things, ethereal things, just... what you said. All of it.”

Aziraphale didn’t know what to say. The answer was yes, of course, he’d just said he wanted to do everything and meant it. But what if Crowley didn’t want that? He knew well Crowley’d do anything to make Aziraphale happy, so even if he wasn’t interested in sex at all he might feel obligated-

“Don’t do that, angel. Just want to hear your feelings, is all. I would absolutely love to. Make love to you, that is. All the human ways and angel ways or- or whatever it is we’ve got, now. But not if you didn’t want it, and not if you’re not ready for it.”

Aziraphale was on him in a flash, tentative distance between them gone as he held Crowley’s face. “Not- Crowley, I- of course I want to make love to you-”

“Just to clarify,” Crowley said, voice slow and patient, a syrupy counterpart to Aziraphale’s fluttering, “You want to have sex me?” His mood had turned on a dime, of course it had, going from that cautious patient thing to a much more dangerous one. It lit Aziraphale up like nothing else ever had. In a way that made the love around them almost hurt.

He’d never felt like this. Ever. Could burn them up for all he cared. Normally the type of thing that’d have him rambling, lost, talking about everything and nothing in a futile attempt to make sense of it. But for once Aziraphale knew what to say. “Only if you want to have sex with me.”

Something caught fire behind Crowley’s eyes, a light flaring up and broadening until it illuminated his whole face. “Alright.” And then he was _gone_.

Aziraphale made a desperate sound in the space he left behind, hands gone from gripping Crowley’s arms to empty air.

Crowley, only a few paces away, met his distress with calm certainty. “We’re not going to make it that far today, angel. Skin makes it worse, remember?”

Aziraphale felt a host of emotions play across his face. Then, “Who said we’re not?”

Must’ve been something in it, to make Crowley’s eyes dart like that. “No one. I only meant…”

But Aziraphale was approaching, slow, deliberate. “I have no qualms about making the attempt as soon as we’re ready, emotional overload be damned.”

Crowley’s brow scrunched. “But you’d tell me to stop? If it was all too much?”

“You could never be too much for me, Crowley. I’m with you every minute of every night and that’s not enough, no sooner have I got through the door of the bookshop than I want to turn around and come back, how on Earth could you possibly think that having more of that, even if it is too much for this corporation-”

“That’s what I mean, angel.” Crowley’s tone was serious, imploring, a hand on either of Aziraphale’s shoulders. If Aziraphale wasn’t used to the rapid mood shifts by now he’d have got vertigo from them. How could Crowley go from uncertain to smooth to cool to careful so fast? “I don’t want it to discorporate you. If it’d be easier to work our way up t-”

“I’ve been working my way up to it for a century.” Aziraphale could do that, too, convey endless decades of longing with a look, he didn’t have to stop himself anymore. “I’ve had plenty of time to think about this, more than enough, I can assure you, and I have to say that if you’re holding back for my sake, please don’t.”

Crowley’s eyes hardened with determination. “I’m not going to discorporate you.”

“Then we’ll start in another plane and work our way up to this one.”

The argument fell from Crowley’s face at that, thoughtfulness replacing it. “You think that would work? Like the true forms or something?”

“Leave our corporations here, safe, have the equivalent of sex in the place we keep our wings, and come back to find our corporations both very much intact, unaffected as they must remain by certain-”

“But we can feel it, angel. We can feel what goes on in the other planes here.”

“Not if we leave them behind entirely. Stop keeping tabs.”

Crowley exhaled a dragging sigh, the kind that would normally be accompanied with fingers in his hair but wasn’t because said hands were keeping Aziraphale steady. “You really want to do that?”

“I really want to do you.”

Crowley stared at him like he had three heads, or maybe a couple hundred eyes, or possibly had taken on a form so alien Crowley’s current linguistic faculties could not accurately describe it. Then he said, pained, “Nice try,” and kissed Aziraphale on the forehead and stepped away again.

“Crowley!”

“Angel!”

“You’re being unreasonable.”

“I am not. Going. To explode you,” Crowley said.

“Unreasonable.”

“I’m sorry, what part of refraining from accidental man-shaped-being-slaughter-”

Aziraphale huffed and marched towards the bedroom.

“Oh, that’s alright, angel. I’ll just be in my office, then. Pop into the conservatory, check on the plants.”

Aziraphale took his book from the nightstand, sat in the corner chair, and tried, twenty-eight times, to start reading.

He couldn’t go to the bookshop. They were replastering the ceiling in the bookshop, and that kind of work involved protective suits and was best completed by workmen who didn’t have overcurious angels nattering in their ears, as Crowley had so lovingly put it.

Why was Aziraphale even angry anyway? He and Crowley’d been snapping at each other all day. Before it sort of made sense, from the holding-back-overwhelming-emotions bit, but now? He couldn’t be mad about Crowley not agreeing to attempt something right away, because he respected Crowley and for as much as Aziraphale thought Crowley was ready to jump him given the word that didn’t mean Crowley actually was ready _himself_ so Aziraphale wasn’t about to be angry at him for-

“ _Fuck_.”

Aziraphale left the book behind and went through the conservatory to the office. Crowley was perched behind the desk in his throne, scrolling through something on his mobile and looking serpentine and relaxed. “Oh, hello. Lovely weather we’re having this afternoon, isn’t it?”

“I have been awful and I would like to apologize. I’m sorry.”

Crowley’s eyes flicked from the screen to Aziraphale’s face. “Whatever for?” There was a true edge of worry in his tone, now, though clearly he was withholding anything until he knew how Aziraphale felt and why.

“I have no right to be angry with you.”

Crowley dropped the phone on the desk, stood, stared into Aziraphale’s eyes with confusion turning to genuine worry and took a step towards him. “Don’t do that.”

“I’ve behaved disgracefully and I’ll do what I-”

“No,” Crowley’s hand was on his shoulder, the lightest touch, but contact, and without saying anything first, communicating to Aziraphale that he thought things like that were okay but also asking with his eyes whether it really was.

God. “It’s fine, it isn’t like that, it’s- it’s me.” Aziraphale didn’t mean to shrink from him, but he did, and Crowley dropped his hand. Aziraphale could feel Crowley’s despair through the love, all of it fighting with the wall that’d gone up the second Aziraphale realized what he’d done. It was like a thick fog had come down around it all, shoving Crowley’s love away and making his own taste metallic and wrong, unnatural, poisoned. He couldn’t breathe, Aziraphale couldn't breathe, everything had been alright and then he just-

“Hey, look at me.” Crowley’s voice, cutting through it even though every instinct told him to disengage, to curl in on himself.

He had to listen to Crowley. Aziraphale opened his eyes.

“Are you with me? Are you here?”

Aziraphale nodded. He’d never felt so trapped in his body in his life.

“You need to breathe. You won’t stop panicking until you breathe. Can you breathe with me? D’you think you can do that?”

Aziraphale nodded again, eyes going from Crowley’s to his steadily rising and falling chest.

“There you go. Easy, come on, you know how to do this, in... out. In... out. Can you keep breathing with me? Just for a second?”

Nod.

“Okay.” Crowley kept his eyes on Aziraphale the whole time.

Aziraphale’s eyes moved from Crowley’s eyes, to his mouth, to his chest, tracked each inhalation and followed it with his own, inhale, exhale, Crowley’s still looking at you he’s right here he’s right here, you’re breathing, all you’re doing is breathing.

When Aziraphale’s breaths were steady and slow, when the miasma of anxiety and fear and self-loathing had become an aching, if bearable, pulse around him, Crowley said, “Little better?”

Aziraphale nodded.

“Need to keep breathing with me?”

Shook his head. Then, voice small and desperate, “Don’t deserve this, you deserve more, you shouldn’t have to-”

“No,” Crowley said. He was gentle, still, but there was an edge to it. “Have this discussion all we like once you’re breathing properly again and thinking properly again. And I’m here, Aziraphale, I’m not leaving, you haven’t hurt me or offended me or anything like that, but I’m not going to get into how impossible that is, because you know it, you must know it’s impossible, until I know you’re okay. Tea?”

Aziraphale nodded again. Equal parts speechless and eloquent in the same hour. Strangeness of it was enough to keep it all from boiling over again. Something was wrong. Just listen to Crowley.

“I’m going to make tea, but I don’t want to leave you here. Will you come with, or is this going to be the miracle of the day?” Crowley inclined his head.

Aziraphale shook his slightly and went out into the living room, the kitchen. He sat at the counter while Crowley put the kettle on.

“Alright,” Crowley said, back to the stove now. “Breathing okay?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“I can still feel it though. Your... I don’t know, emotions. I know you don’t want me to, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to keep them locked up, so please, please, don’t try?”

Aziraphale bit his lip. Then nodded. Can’t say no to you.

“Okay.” Crowley sighed. “Alright. Can you listen, for a second?”

Nod.

Crowley was staring into his eyes, a foot or two away across the counter but distance didn’t matter, when someone looked at you like that. “I love you. I’m in love with you. You know that.”

Aziraphale nodded.

“Yeah, good. And you know nothing can change that, right? Nothing. Not anything you could do, or say, or have done, or have said, ever?”

Aziraphale sucked in a breath and nodded again. Having to trust him even though it didn’t sound like a thing that could be true, because Crowley believed it, he could hear it in his voice.

“Right. So, establishing that, I love you, in love with you, will never stop loving you, I acknowledge it is possible for you to make me upset but would like to tell you that you haven’t today at all.” Crowley let that sink in a moment, let Aziraphale hear it and process it, let the shock register on his face. “With me?”

Aziraphale nodded.

“Good. So, I could keep talking, go on about how we’ve been through much worse than a bit of angelic emotional overload, or explain why, exactly, I think your reasoning’s about as incongruous as a dolphin with legs, but I don’t know if you’re ready for that.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth, closed it, coughed. Finally, “Probably not.”

The water boiled. Crowley started making tea. “So I understand it may be hard to be in the same room as me, but I really don’t want to leave you right n-”

“No. Don’t. I can- time. Just need some time.”

Crowley nodded. “Want to sit in the living room? Put something on, and you can read or pretend not to pay attention or whatever else?”

The gut-wrenching horror was beginning to subside now that he’d sat with Crowley’s reassurance for a moment. Aziraphale still felt awful, worse than he ever had short of the day the world almost ended- no, not even that had felt like this. Except Crowley hadn’t stormed out. Quite the opposite. And while touching pinky fingers sounded like too much right now, the thought of being away from him was as unbearable to Aziraphale as it apparently was to Crowley. So he nodded again, and went with Crowley into the living room, and they sat a cushion apart on the sofa and Aziraphale paid attention to Netflix for maybe the third time in his life.

It helped. Still wanted to curl into a ball and never move again, but it helped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Them picking out rings makes Zira all emotional and horny, and then he gets frustrated because Crowley knows they can't smash until they know they won't ruin their corporations. Zira feels guilty for being frustrated, because it isn't Crowley's fault and the very thought of Zira being upset at Crowley not giving him something gives him mad heebie jeebies. Cue Aziraphale having a panic attack. Crowley makes tea, helps him stop freaking out, and then they just sit and watch TV (or Crowley does, more an opportunity for Zira to take his time thinking through everything and calming down taking however much time he needs).


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starts off with a Discussion of Feelings and ends with a touch of bookshop reno

“I don’t know what that was,” Aziraphale said. It was three in the morning.

Crowley’d been on some animated show for a while, but when Aziraphale spoke, he paused it. “Don’t know that it was anything. Or, I mean, it was lots of things. More a cumulative event than one specific thing.” He turned to face Aziraphale on the sofa.

Aziraphale did the same. They were a cushion apart, safe distance but close enough to still feel the other one was there, to still feel the currents of movements and breaths in the air of the room. Aziraphale took a deep breath. “I think... well, first off, it’d be ridiculous not to admit that your point about my getting overwhelmed clearly still stands. Things have just been going so well since I moved in. And I- I didn’t think, I wasn’t thinking about overwhelming _you_. And I’m sorry about that.”

Crowley met Aziraphale’s trepidation with calm certainty. “While I forgive you for any millisecond lapses of consideration on your part, I also forgive you for anything else you’ve blamed yourself for the past twelve hours granted I’d even agree you should be sorry about any of it, which probably in most cases I don’t.”

Aziraphale’s face had done many things while he was sitting there on the sofa with Crowley ruminating, but none of those things, until that very moment, had included a smile. It was a bitter-tinged thing, the kind of chagrined expression someone wore when they knew they’d done something wrong. Aziraphale’d learned it that first day on the garden wall. He'd felt his muscles pull up, and even though it was unpleasant to express this, even though the embarrassment in it was the most uncomfortable thing he’d ever felt then, he knew it was honest, and he couldn’t help himself.

Crowley sighed. “Okay, yeah. Didn’t think you wouldn’t blame yourself on some level. Unfortunately not within my power to convince you against that unless you yourself choose to believe it, so.”

“Back to the overwhelming bit?” Aziraphale asked, smile gaining some ground over the other parts of his expression.

Crowley nodded for him to continue.

“Today was very overwhelming for all sorts of reasons. Neither of us was keeping our feelings in check from the beginning, which is I think why we disagreed at the shop.”

Crowley nodded. “We’d’ve disagreed anyway, but you may be onto something. Underlying causes of added stress and all that. Different day we might’ve got on, imagine how weird that would’ve been.”

His attempts were working, the absolute fiend. Aziraphale was smiling properly now and he couldn’t even be bothered to feel bad about himself any longer because Crowley was fine, he only did that easy barely-holding-in-a-snort smirk when he really was fine. “Yes. Not to mention I really did go and step in it, trying to rush into things even when I knew we were on a perfectly good trajectory and changing things too fast could only end in disaster.”

Crowley smiled slowly, like _he_ was finally certain _Aziraphale_ was really alright. “I’m the patient one. It’s absurd, I do ninety miles per hour in central London. I invented mobile order so I wouldn’t have to wait in line. And I’m the patient one.” Just smiled at each other for a moment. Then, “You really okay?”

“Yes. I mean, I still feel I’ve done very wrong by you. But I feel like I can discuss it rationally now.” Strangest thing, the energy between them. Each time a careful wave of Crowley’s feeling lapped at the edges of Aziraphale’s consciousness, it pulled up a bit of his own sinking feelings, drew them up and out and away off into nothing. Crowley wasn’t taking the feelings for him, he was coaxing them to disappear.

Aziraphale could’ve said he hadn’t seen anything like it, except he had. In a million upset humans, right on the brink of an emotional outburst only to have someone whisper something or touch their arm or look into their eyes just right to ease the dark feelings away.

That was what Crowley was doing to him. On a very different scale, maybe, but that was what Crowley was doing _for_ him. What his presence was doing for Aziraphale.

How could he not believe Crowley when he said everything was going to be okay, when just sitting in the same room as him made Aziraphale feel like that?

“Looks like you’ve worked out a thought.”

“I have,” Aziraphale said, smile growing. “And I know you’re going to tell me I don’t have to apologize, but will you let me tell you why I-”

“Of course you can. Can’t get through a feeling if you don’t know why it is. And I want to help you.”

Aziraphale took a breath. “I feel like I betrayed you, in a way. That my being angry, or frustrated, or upset in any regard to our not immediately- I don’t know, doing more, doing anything- that was a betrayal. Fundamentally disrespectful. Something I had no right to be upset about, so any anger I felt towards you was just wrong.”

“I can see why you feel that way. But there is no wrong way to feel. Feelings can’t be wrong. Actions can, things you say, obviously you and I know that better than anyone. But a feeling... surely after being ‘round me so long and keeping your wings white, you know you can’t be wholly responsible for what goes on in your head, or what you feel.” He was so gentle. Aziraphale’d never deserved that gentleness, that patience.

But Crowley kept giving and giving it to him. Wanted to forever. Aziraphale sucked in a breath and willed the tears away. “No, of course not. But I acted on it.”

“Eh.”

Aziraphale’s tearful mood flipped to disbelief in a second. God they really were suited for each other. “What do you mean, _eh_?”

“I mean you didn’t yell at me or hit me or anything like that. You took yourself out of a bad situation, which is what you’re _supposed to do_ , and then when you’d thought about it a while you felt in the wrong, but you weren’t prepared to feel that. I was only a room away. There was still all this-” Crowley waved a hand around, clearly indicating the energy between them, “all this _this_ to deal with. You weren’t in a place where you could process guilt.”

The word felt so foreign. Ethereal beings didn’t feel guilt. Not in the biblical sense, anyway. Not in the way religions made it out to be, some grand thirst for repentance. Aziraphale had almost never felt guilty because he’d spent centuries working out exactly how to get his way without breaking a moral rule, and anyway even doing temptations it’d been part of the balance of the plan and he’d known that, been sure of it. If he was doing something wrong he’d have been stopped somehow. Held back by his nature, or cast into Hell. The extent of his guilt, before today, had been the gifting of one flaming sword and a handful of grumbly little things he could dismiss with ‘doesn’t matter anyway’ and ‘if they cared they would’ve said something,’ which nobody ever did. Humans felt guilt. Beings with no ineffable moral code felt guilt.

Crowley felt guilt. Not in this moment, maybe, but plenty of other moments since Aziraphale had met him. He was the only one who could remotely understand how Aziraphale felt, because, unlike humans, guilt hadn’t been hardwired into Crowley. However little he remembered of it, he had once known a life without it. He’d had to learn it.

Aziraphale felt a wave of affection, and possessiveness, and pride, that’s my demon, he’s married to me, and in the flush of emotion he realized just how emotional he was. How out of control, beyond reason, beyond even the carefully-honed reason granted only through millennia of experience. “I’m still sorry I did it,” Aziraphale said. Because he was, no matter how good an excuse he’d had.

“I forgive you,” Crowley said. “Are we talking more about this now or should I sleep on the sofa?”

“You are not sleeping on the sofa! We can sleep when we’ve finished this discussion, surely our still-mostly-immortal corporations can handle that much.”

“Mostly-? Yeah, no, we can discuss that later. But for now. Touching. Feelings and stuff. Pretty clear we’re shit at the whole feelings control bit, least where energy is concerned.”

Aziraphale laughed.

“I don’t know what really else to say, though. I mean, we’ve covered the most important part, which is it’s not your fault, and obviously we’ve been doing fine before now so I’m not going to say no if you say you’re okay with me in bed, but still. And speaking of sleeping, how’s that on your end? ‘Cause I’m okay, a little more tired than usual after, you know, today, but in general not bad. I’m guessing you’re feeling... a bit unhinged, maybe?”

“Unhinged.” Aziraphale laughed again. “You know, I think that’s very close. Implies instability. Uncertainty. Except the only thing I feel uncertain about is me. I don’t feel uncertain about you at all. I never have, not once. Even when I was sure I’d hurt you unconscionably, part of me still knew that what we had was stronger than anything else.”

“We did beat the apocalypse,” Crowley said.

“With Adam’s help.”

Crowley shrugged. “Yeah, alright. Six thousand years, though.”

“Six thousand years,” Aziraphale echoed. Then, “I know we can do it.”

“Oh, yeah, no problem. May take some time.” When Aziraphale made his pained longing clear on his face, Crowley added, “If you get discorporated it is your fault” and opened his arms.

Aziraphale went over to him, sat right next to him and buried his face in Crowley’s shirt and inhaled. “I’m still alive. See? Perfectly... perfectly fine.”

“If you’re dizzy I’m moving.”

“No.” Aziraphale was a little dizzy, but he felt like he was stabilizing, like combining Crowley’s love with proximity was leeching the twisting feelings out of him even faster. “You make me feel better. Just being near you makes me feel better.”

“It’s the same for me. Can you imagine the rush that gives a demon?”

“I think I have some idea.”

Aziraphale felt Crowley wince. “Right, yeah, sorry, who’m I talking to.”

“This apology thing goes both ways. Unconditional love conveying unconditional forgiveness, or something.”

“Are you sure you want to talk? Because I think we should sleep. And talk more in the morning. Now your brain’s unstuck and we can just go to bed like normal people without starting a thunderstorm in my flat.”

Aziraphale sighed. Crowley may have a point. They had put their corporations through a lot that day. “I suppose we could go to bed.”

“Okay, hang on-” and then Crowley was sliding an arm under his knees and lifting him.

Aziraphale opened one eye. “How’re you doing this?”

“Will. You know. Car on fire. Explain tomorrow.” Crowley was doing something else, moving the blankets back with whatever limb he had available, but Aziraphale’s eyes were closed again.

Then he was in bed, and Crowley was gone, so Aziraphale made a sound of protest.

“M’just getting these stupid things off, d’you know how uncomfortable they are to sleep in?”

“No,” Aziraphale said. “I wear normal trousers like a normal-” he yawned, “-normal human.”

“Okay. If you get up, you wake me.”

Aziraphale hummed.

“No, promise.”

“I promise,” Aziraphale said.

“Good. I love you. Go to sleep.”

“I love you, too,” Aziraphale said, and then he slept.

Aziraphale slept later than him, only the second time ever, and Crowley, who’d awakened with a warm arm slung over his waist and an angel drooling on his shoulder, had no intention of disturbing him.

It was reasonably late- noon. So, what, he’d got eight hours? Good. Angel needed more. Even if all he could do in the meantime was stare.

Kind of nice, staring. Before the past few weeks Crowley’d never seen Aziraphale more relaxed than when he was melting into a bookshop chair, halfway through something he’d never read before and as dead to the world as if he had been asleep. Except this- the peace on his face was just the same. Just as complete.

He deserved it. Don’t talk to me about deserve, Crowley thought, you’re the one who deserves everything I can give you. The bookshop was already well underway, with Crowley’s help on the human-standards part of it. And their rings were being made.

Hadn’t really sunk in. Technically they’d only been married a few days. Or centuries, but in terms of acknowledgment, in terms of thinking of themselves as married beyond whatever facsimile their friendship had provided before that, they were practically newlyweds.

Newlyweds who couldn’t intertwine pinkies without Aziraphale let-there-be-lighting himself. Well. Crowley did sometimes feel, when they were really close and they had a bit of skin going on, kissing, usually, he sometimes felt like his own corporation was going to shake into pieces, but what was that? Acclimation to angelic energy. If they were going to blow each other up somehow they’d figure it out when they went into their true forms. There was an instinct there, the same way animals knew, by a combination of tiny communications, how threatening another creature might be. Also you were mostly just energy at that point so if they didn’t accidentally become one person or destroy each other some other way (not likely, neither of them got that upset about the prospect of each other dying for nothing, thank you very much) they’d be okay.

And this was not including the potential advantage of seeing each other’s forms, which, again, lot more understanding with those. Potential for comprehension of- er- whatever. Not like angels or demons manifested as pure energy very often. It was confusing. And difficult. Unless you were somewhere isolated- and strangely enough Earth was, at least from other such beings- you’d basically be speaking via shared space to an amorphous collection of shapes and light. Of course, Crowley was willing to bet the two of them would look a lot like they did in their corporations. Both because they’d inhabited them so long and because duh, dress for the job you want.

Crowley got to contemplating what various angels and demons might look like as pure energy. When he got to Gabriel he was struck by an image of the sex robot from the later seasons of Bojack Horseman, key difference being that the sex robot had some modicum of compassion. It was a giving robot. Conscious? Probably not. But generous? Oh, yeah. None of that self-righteous greater good shite.

Aziraphale’s voice startled him. “What’s so amusing?”

“Nothing. Just whiling away the hours. Not important.”

“Please share?” Aziraphale was looking at him, then, a soft coaxing imploring look that was like puppy eyes but much less transparently manipulative.

“I was thinking what other beings’d look like in their true forms.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, looking intrigued. “Who had you so entertained?”

“Gabriel. At first I thought he’d look like the sex robot from that show I was watching yesterday, but in order to embody Henry Fondle you need to care about people.”

“Is it safe to assume from context clues that Henry Fondle is the robot’s name?”

“Yes. A much nobler creature, at least where selflessness is concerned, than Gabriel could ever be. Then I was thinking what else could possibly embody that and still be, you know, describable beyond the visceral reactions one has upon meeting him.”

“Have you settled on anything?”

“I was thinking like a face, right? And then, you know how in pictures of the sun or a sunburst, there’s rays coming out every direction. He’d be that, except he’d be a large face surrounded by penises.”

Aziraphale shuddered. “I’m gay and I find that absolutely repulsive.”

“Yeah, I know. Hang on, what?” Crowley craned his neck to blink at Aziraphale. Had he just said-

“I’m gay?”

Crowley nodded mutely.

“While I am not so human as to deny the ever-changing nature of sexuality, I’ve found over the years that’s the one that sticks.”

“The one that… Angel, what are you on about?”

“Haven’t you ever been going along, minding the business of the day, and struck upon the thought that a certain word or phrase felt very right to you, felt very you, and if being you was being this you wanted to be it?”

Crowley opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, “Not since the last couple- oh.” Because there had been words and phrases. Not labels, never really, but lexicons. Community lexicons, over the course of humanity’s changing beliefs surrounding sex and gender, that had felt to Crowley like the physical equivalent of turning into a snake and curling into a ball under a heated blanket, safe, content in the knowledge that if he wanted to peek out and say something, his contribution would be welcomed, but if all he wanted was a nod of solidarity and a place to take a nap, that was fine, too. “You really like ‘gay’ that much?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “It works. I found the history of the word, and how it flows into the current popular meaning, seems a rather appropriate through line for me. I always liked the word ‘gay,’ it just didn’t also happen to also mean ‘into the lads’ until very recently.”

“So you like gay, good with gay, gay’s a word you can get behind, you like the historical flow of the meaning, but you also think ‘into the lads’ is an accurate description of-”

“Well I know you were never one for conformity, even if it is to a subversive group, but-”

“No, no, angel, I’m not criticizing you! Not for that. I’ll take the piss for your attempts at slang any day, but I’d never- like a word, I’ll come along. My husband is gay. Doesn’t that sound better than _into the lads_?”

Aziraphale sighed, looking a little put out but generally satisfied with Crowley’s reaction. “Ten or twenty years ago I might still have gone with ‘aesthetically and emotionally drawn to corporations of masculine presentation.’”

“Exactly. You’re learning. Fits in very well with this whole human thing we’re doing now.” Crowley tipped his head to look the other way and saw the clock. “Shite.”

“What?”

“It’s one. We’ve got a meeting at the bookshop at one thirty with the plaster guys, so if we don’t get dressed right this very second-”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, and sprung up. He looked down at yesterday’s clothes, tutted, and went to the wardrobe to find something unwrinkled. “You should’ve woken me.”

“No I shouldn’t’ve, you needed the sleep.” Crowley rolled his legs out of bed, stretched, and reached for his discarded jeans. “Get me a shirt, would you?”

“Would you like a black one or a grey one?”

“Ha ha.”

“I was being serious, my dear-”

“Black, then.”

Fifteen minutes later they were outside the bookshop, hot drinks in hand (mobile order, you’re fucking welcome, humanity), right as the plaster men were clearing out.

“Hello,” Aziraphale said. “All well in there?”

The head plasterer nodded. “Had a little to finish today, and then doing all the clean-up, you know, make sure there’s not dust everywhere any more than we could reasonably expect after a proper cleaning.”

“Aren’t you supposed to get all the dust?” Crowley said, narrowing his eyes and hoping it came off through the shades.

“Well, yes, but it’s plaster. Have you ever tried to clean glitter up?”

“Sort of just leave it on and hope that eventually... ah, right, see your point.” Crowley took a sip of his coffee. “Anything else we need to worry about?”

“I wouldn’t get it wet, but seeing as this is a bookshop- just don’t paint it for a week, maybe longer if it’s humid, and you should be fine.”

“I don’t think I’m going to paint it,” Aziraphale said. “Although a nice ivory might look better with the flooring.”

“S’long as you don’t do it for a week,” the plaster man confirmed.

Crowley nodded and fished an envelope from his jacket pocket. “Pleasure doing business.”

“And you as well. Hope this place works out, by the sound of it it’s going to be fantastic if it does. Couple of the lads are running down for a coffee, did you want to have a look before we go, make sure everything’s okay?”

“Yes,” Crowley said, and pulled open the front door for Aziraphale.

“Ah,” Aziraphale said. “Maybe white would be alright with the floors after all.”

The place wasn’t anywhere near done, there were still drop cloths over all the shelves and piles of books stacked on the floor. But now the floor was visible, and the ceiling was all tied up, or all shored up, as it were, with the spots for the fixtures and the medallions in place. Most of the shelves were confined to a few areas, on top of it, so walls where shelves had once been were bare, paneled halfway up, waiting for a new stain and wallpaper and then they’d be pristine. “It’s so bright in here.”

Aziraphale nodded. “All the windows are uncovered. Or not uncovered, there’s still the paper, but the light can get in and it’s bouncing off the ceiling. I thought I might not like it that light, thought the wood might’ve been better, but...”

“Even Adam’s wood was rotting, that’s how bad it was,” Crowley said. “This is great. You can do the whole upstairs in wood, if you like.”

“Upstairs, that’s right,” Aziraphale said, and wove around piles and shelves to the curving staircase near the left wall. “I know we’ve still got the skylight, and there’s so many more windows down there, but I’m afraid once the shelves are in it won’t reflect properly if the ceiling’s dark.”

Crowley followed him up the stairs to find the first floor looking just as crisp as the ground, if with much fewer shelves returned in the recent aftermath of basically rebuilding the whole level. “No, I can help you with this. You just go to the place that has what you need, the wallpaper store or rug place or what have you, and when you see something you want you get it then and worry about where it goes later. You’ll always find a spot.”

Aziraphale glanced back at him. “Is that how you redid your flat?”

“Bingo. M’gonna go down, let them know they can leave. Unless you see anything?”

Aziraphale scanned the first floor and shook his head. “No. This looks fine. And you did say they got very good reviews, if we had a problem I’m sure they’d be willing to come and help.”

Crowley did a look around of his own on the way down, but found nothing amiss. “All a-okay,” he said to the- was that his title? Plaster manager?- as he went out. “Now we just need to choose the wallpaper. Hoping that won’t be too hard.”

“Gotta choose well, in a place like this.”

“Don’t I know it.” Upon reflection, doesn’t Aziraphale know it might have been more accurate, but Crowley’d rather not get into the particulars. “Thanks. Be sure to give you a good review.”

“Thanks. Good luck.”

Crowley didn’t think they’d need it, but he appreciated the thought, anyway.


	10. Chapter 10

Furnishing a bookshop was much more complicated than moving one’s handful of treasured possessions from a flat-turned-storage-unit to an existing home.

“How can I choose the wallpaper if I don’t know how the light will come in?”

“Well, you’ve got a few options.” Crowley went up to one of the walls and put a hand on it. “Make the windows bigger.”

“This building’s brick.”

“That sounds like a no, then. You could get all those LED businesses up here as well.”

“That would work, though now we’ve taken them down I’m wondering if we shouldn’t just find more, find odd ones, you know, because I do like the old look of the new ones but if we could find a bunch of different ones at an antique place I think it’d be-”

“Yes,” Crowley said, pointing a finger at him. “Spectacular idea. Soft white bulbs, yeah?”

“Obviously. The ceiling’s bright enough already, we aren’t trying to blind them.”

“Good, good, yes. Have you given any thought to industrial bookshelves?”

“They’ve got to be wood.”

“Look into special-order, then, no problem.” Crowley paced back towards him. “You’ve got a lot of this planned already. Did you want to go shopping? S’the season for it. Holiday blowouts and all that. Or getting close to them, anyway, bloody cold enough out there.”

The chill in the air had done wonders for the drying plaster, though Aziraphale had decided not to paint it after all. He glanced down at his planner and sighed. “It _is_ only November. And I was thinking of a spring opening.”

“Sounds perfect. Give you time to find pieces for it.” Crowley was shifting his weight from foot to foot like he wanted to take off running. They’d been either in the shop or talking about the shop for the past three days, save a few meals out. He had to be going mad, being cooped up like this. Best they’d done was a walk in St. James’s yesterday, and half that time it’d been raining.

Come to think of it, Aziraphale had been getting a bit carried away himself. Being around Crowley for seventy-two hours had been nice, and it had helped him get used to being in the deeper waters of consistent companionship, but Aziraphale had dreamt of upholstery fabrics last night. No matter how awful the idea of spending time away from Crowley sounded, if they kept this up it’d be necessary. Some time spent around humans would do them both some good. Aziraphale closed his planner. “Not to mention we’ve got to do holiday shopping for the Tadfield contingent this year. Will a month be enough?”

“I think a month will be more than enough. Start now?”

“Just what I was thinking. Did you want to take the car, or get on a bus or something and walk north?”

“Better take the car. Just in case, you know?”

The two of them climbed into the Bentley and went to find a space in one of the department store garages; Crowley said they’d hop from one to another until they were sure they wouldn’t be needing to transport any furniture.

“There’s always delivery, of course,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley stared at him. “If it’ll fit in this car you’ll want it today. I know you.”

Aziraphale smiled sheepishly and did not protest.

It was early enough in the day that they had plenty of operating hours left to go, so they walked through each section and shop slowly, lingering in cookware (Newt definitely cooked, Anathema had mentioned it) and children’s clothes (Crowley believed fancy jackets were integral to individual confidence, which Aziraphale could not argue against, being in possession of one such jacket himself), and furniture, though Aziraphale knew within the first five minutes of that he wouldn’t be satisfied if something hadn’t had at least three owners before him and a few decent nicks and scratches besides.

Crowley was going on about how much Anathema- he'd taken to calling her Annie- would appreciate a particular shawl that’d caught his eye.

“Think it’d look wonderful, dear. And she’s a lovely person, I'm sure anything you got her-”

“Lovely and honest,” Crowley corrected with a smile. “Can’t fault her for that, obviously, but honesty doesn’t exactly go hand in hand with manners, ‘specially where Annie’s concerned.”

“Why do you call her that?”

“What, Annie?” Crowley shrugged. “Shorter. And a much better name, in my humble opinion. Also she didn’t seem to mind when I slipped it in last conversation we had.”

Aziraphale cocked his head to the side, considering. “Has anyone ever called you by a nickname?”

Crowley snorted. “What, like you? Nah, few people have done initials, but I didn’t really like them. Never been one for nicknames, really. Made mine longer, didn’t I?”

“Why, yes, I suppose you did.” Aziraphale was running through potential nicknames in his head and vetoing all of them. Crowley was just so _Crowley_.

“I’d, er, well-” Crowley took a breath, tint of color high on his cheek. “Always thought it might be nice to call you Zira. Short, you know? Simpler to say, takes less time. Be good if only for expediency’s sake.”

Aziraphale felt a wave of warmth that had absolutely nothing to do with the building’s central heating and let a small smile creep onto his face. “I’ve been calling you ‘my dear’ for centuries. Hardly think it’d be a bother at all. Least when you’re speaking to me I’ll know for sure.”

“You do call everyone ‘my dear,’” Crowley agreed, then smiled himself. “You really wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course not. Your reasoning is perfectly sound, and it’ll remind me to start calling you things that couldn’t possibly be directed at anyone else.” Because another idea was taking shape in Aziraphale’s mind, one much, much better than a nickname.

“What, like foul fiend, wily serpent?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of darling. Sweetheart, perhaps.”

The red stuck on Crowley’s face for a moment longer and he mouthed something unintelligible, then said, “Hang on. Are you saying in exchange for me calling you Zira you get to whip out any conceivable endearment whenever you like?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Oh, sod your reputation, sweetheart-”

Crowley squeaked.

Later an extensive argument regarding the precise definition of the sound would be had, but for now Aziraphale was content to say nothing about it and wrap Crowley in a hug.

Both of them kept it up the rest of the day, Crowley throwing in a few endearments along with the Ziras for good measure. Aziraphale kept blushing in spite of himself.

They weren’t retired, exactly. They still did things to influence humanity. Minor things, things requiring lots of talking and little miracles. Same type of nonsense Crowley got up to when he was bored, really. Inconveniencing bad people and giving a bit of help to good ones. Except the giving help to good ones hadn’t been demonic, had it? Required excuses, before. Tangential ways to advance the cause of evil. Now he could do whatever he liked, no questions asked, so long as it fell under the ‘I’m stealing your wi-fi to use my phone’ category and not the ‘I’m using your wi-fi to hack the government’ one where skimming ethereal energy was concerned.

And the bookshop was going to do a lot of good, once it was finished. All said and done it was going to take the better part of the winter to fix it all. Aziraphale seemed rather put-out by this. There was only so much organizing one could do, after all, before the wallpaper going up became the necessary next step. As they left the wallpaper shop, which had it on order for them but was going to take a week at least to get it shipped (no miracles), Crowley could feel the disappointment rolling off Aziraphale in waves.

“Hey,” he said. “It’s alright. You’re on a good schedule and every person you smile at in the street sends a little barb upstairs or down, trust me. Influencing things for the better like crazy.”

“I know,” Aziraphale said. “ _I know._ ” He then reached for Crowley’s hand, which he’d taken to doing almost constantly lately. Crowley wasn’t complaining, even if it did surprise him every time. Apparently exposure had been just the thing; they’d been around each other, in the same building if not the same room, all day every day for a whole week, and they’d been living together for three, and neither of them had had an issue yet. Crowley knew because Aziraphale was very bad at lying and had not even bent the truth a fraction since the ring incident, not that Crowley ever thought Aziraphale would but the impatience was a hallmark of his and not everybody could be a paragon of restraint.

“It’ll be worth it, trust me. And it’s our three-month anniversary dinner next week, that’ll be nice.” Since September. Not married since then, if you wanted to nitpick about it, but they’d been together three whole months. Crowley’d finally stopped waking up to find Aziraphale in his bed and thinking he was dreaming.

“Dinner will be nice, but it won’t spread positivity nearly as fast as the bookshop being done.”

Crowley sighed and sought something else, anything else, to brighten Aziraphale’s mood. “You can spread good some other way.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Yes, but how? Minor miracles are all well and good, they just don’t accomplish very much. And with the bookshop closed- it’s easier when people come to you looking for something. They can’t be looking for anything if they can’t come in, you see? They’re not broadcasting their problems the same way. They aren’t letting off that same sort of energy, the kind one tends to let of when wandering a bookshop.”

The idea was so spectacular Crowley could’ve hit himself for not thinking of it sooner. “So take a break.”

“What?” Aziraphale jerked his head to face him, almost stopping them in the middle of the road.

“You’ve earned it, haven’t you? I mean, how late were you up last night doing this?” Crowley gestured to the bookshop as they stepped inside. Half of the room had been packed with as much as skilled builders could believe was physically possible for a creaky restored wood floor to hold (even if it had been reinforced below already) to leave the other half free for them to set up the counter that was getting built the next day. Crowley knew organization was going to take a month at least, knowing Aziraphale, but he was still making good time.

Aziraphale hesitated. “But the planner…”

“Sod the planner. Got all our appointments in my mobile, and you can still use it for that, just- can’t go around accomplishing clandestine good if the environment required to do so is not suited to the task,” Crowley said. He kept on, “I mean, I know you love this place, and want to pour as much as you can into it, but...”

“But that doesn’t do anyone much good if I’ve got no energy left to pour after running myself in circles looking for armchairs and insisting your holding my hand for six hours straight isn’t exhausting?”

“Exactly,” Crowley said, relieved. “Let’s go for coffee, you can brainstorm? Decide if there’s anything vacationy you want to do? I’ll even go out if you like, take a walk.” The suggestion caused a pang of a desperate grasping unpleasantness that Crowley would have to examine later, but he could do it, bless it all, Aziraphale deserved some time off.

“Don’t be absurd,” Aziraphale said, flooding Crowley with warmth as he said it, “If I can handle you seven days at a stretch you in the presence of humans will be no trouble at all,” and then they were heading down the street again, not holding hands any longer, but bumping shoulders every other step.

“So,” Crowley said as they sat there, hands around steaming mugs, “If you could do anything, what would it be?”

“I’m doing it. Renovating the bookshop to do good without me having to use miracles. Being with you.”

“Yeah, but _anything_ \- I mean, you could go anywhere. See or do anything you’ve ever wanted. Like that time on the bench, only bigger.” He couldn’t help but smile at the memory.

“Rather thought that was the best thing I could’ve done,” Aziraphale said quietly. “Deciding to be with you. Monumental event if ever I saw one.”

“Okay, fine,” Crowley said, bypassing the champagne energy inspired by Aziraphale’s dream of choice and seizing on a hopefully much less emotionally draining idea instead. “Fine, fine, fine, where’re we going on our honeymoon?”

“Honeymoon?” Aziraphale asked, looking taken aback.

“Well, yeah, clearly we can’t, you know, do everything, but that idea about true forms was nice, and we haven’t...” It had been one of the things nagging him. Much time as they’d spent together Crowley hadn’t wanted to push it, and bookshop had been distracting them. Still. They were married, now, weren’t they, had rings coming in the next few days and everything. It seemed a logical next step to take, at least for them.

“Ah. Yes.” Aziraphale thought for a moment. Then, with a little smirk, “So we’re seeing each other naked, that part’s still on, just the touching you’re opposed to?”

Naked, honestly, beings of pure energy couldn’t be anything _but_ \- “I’m not- you- that's not fair,” Crowley whined, cursing his lack of self-control but hoping it might sway the angel towards mercy. What a thing to think, Christ. “We said we’d negotiate. With ourselves and the universe and stuff. We need to do that before we do anything else. It’s safer.”

“Alright.” Aziraphale leaned forward, steepled his hands on the table. “I still want to do that, and I understand why it means so much to you. And it will be beneficial, being able to see all the things invisible to our corporations’ eyes. But I do think we should discuss other things. What we’re working towards, say.”

“Yeah, of course,” Crowley croaked.

“Let’s start with the simplest thing. Have you ever made love to a human?”

Oh. That was considerably easier than he’d thought. May be an angel of mercy yet. “No,” Crowley said.

“Have you ever had sex with one?”

Still easy. “Looooads of times. Gonna need to be more specific.”

Aziraphale sighed. “While I am very well-informed, I think it might be easier for both of us, in this instance-”

“Alright. Never been in love with a human, so no love to be made, as stated above, but I’ve got off, like, a lot with them. Less than with myself, obviously, eyes are kind of a nuisance if you want to be properly comfortable, but, er-” How did one phrase the next bit? I never had sex in Heaven and I was rather worried if I did it just right with a human I might forget myself and change shape or dump energy into them or maybe make one of us spontaneously combust? Crowley felt his voice drop in volume and confidence but kept talking, anyway, “S’just the need. Just been the pleasure. I always thought if I did, um, do any, you know, intracorporeal anything, something bad might happen.”

Aziraphale looked confused for three, maybe four seconds, and then he understood and smiled all soft and melty. “You were afraid if you let yourself feel anything it might go badly, so you drew a line and never crossed it.”

That was exactly what Crowley had done. Notwithstanding the explosion part, because humans died and didn’t come back. If Crowley said, hey, there we go, orgasms all day long but none of this being inside each other business, _that’s_ too personal- if he said that and decided that was how things were gonna go, he could have a maximum fondness threshold and not go beyond it. Not to mention it was a thousand times easier to avoid most of the human fretting that accompanied specific sex acts. One couldn’t exactly explain the ethereal procreative ban to a high-ranking member of any royal family, let alone an English one. In the end, Crowley might be fond of a human now and again, spend a fair bit of time with some of them, but never, for either of their sakes, did he get too attached.

Never had to do that with Aziraphale. Couldn’t worry about something that’d already happened. Set much worse limits for himself of course, including but not limited to don’t you dare let him fall and I would never risk fucking this up, but after the not-apocalypse things were different. They could look at this thing they’d both felt for decades or centuries or longer and say, yes, that’s exactly it, and do what they pleased about it.

“But you could,” Aziraphale said softly. “If you wanted to. If you wanted to know. I would understand, of course, if-”

“Wouldn’t.” When Aziraphale just stared, Crowley continued, amazed he was saying it but determined to do so, anyway, “Makes no sense, first of all. Everyone’s different. Everyone’s different with everyone else. It’s only going to be the way it is between us between us, so I don’t see a point in trying it with someone else first, because I don’t want- I set my own limits, right? I make my own rules. And if the rules have to do with feelings, and I feel like this about you, I would never- I can’t even _look_ at anyone else, Aziraphale. Wouldn’t want to even if I could.” How did you explain to someone they were so bright, too bright to look away from? How did you explain that they were the center of your world, never mind the rest of it?

“I see,” Aziraphale said. After a moment he cleared his throat, added, “I feel the same way, you know. I never, ah, never placed the same limitations on my interactions with humans as you, but I also never received anything from them. Sexually, I mean, I stayed… not, for the most part. It didn’t seem prudent, and before you there was never anyone I’d even want to try it with.”

“But you want to try it with me?” Crowley asked.

“Yes.”

They’d been over this, they’d had this conversation a week ago, it was not a surprise Aziraphale wanted him Crowley should not be this hot and bothered about a completely technical discussion that had nothing to do with-

Ah, fuck it. “In the interest of our sanity I’m not going to explain how good it feels to hear you say that, but rest assured that one day I will make sure you know.”

And then, because his angel was absurd and would never stop surprising him, Aziraphale said, “I don’t think you realize how amazing you are, saying things torturous as that so eloquently, so easily.”

“You know you’re making this harder for both of us?” Crowley asked, desperation creeping into his tone.

Aziraphale smiled. “I’ve been led to believe it’s better that way. Drawing out the thrill of the chase, the anticipation. I’m hoping it pays off in the end.”

Crowley could have said it wasn’t fair, _Aziraphale_ was supposed to be the impatient one, and who was being eloquently torturous now? Instead he changed the subject. “So anyway. Even if it does take a while longer for the sex bit, did you have somewhere in mind? For, ah, for the honeymoon?”

“I was thinking we’d go for a drive, when we did the forms part. Somewhere we could go off in a field, somewhere remote, both so nobody’d see us and so, when we got back, if you wanted to…”

“Fly?”

Aziraphale nodded.

“Haven’t in years,” Crowley said, wistful.

“Neither have I.”

“S’a good idea,” Crowley said, already picturing it. The two of them in the middle of nowhere, wings spread out, able to just _be_ for the first time in- well, for the first time ever. “I think I’d like that.”

“I have a proposal for you, then,” Aziraphale said. “How about we stay here, tie everything up we need to, and then, in a couple weeks, after our anniversary dinner, we just go.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. Go for a drive, find a place to be truly alone, finally see each other. Although I don’t know that I’d- I think it would be nice, to stay here. To be home. Even if it is a honeymoon. For as much time as we’ve spent in the flat, we’ve never really had nothing to do or nowhere to be. Never together, at least.”

Crowley could have argued that he’d done nothing plenty of times, but, given that most of those times had been pre-being-with-Aziraphale, and given the angel had been much happier fussing over his planner than lounging on the sofa in recent weeks- “Yeah. That sounds nice. Could maybe cook, for a change. Or order in. Just. Just be together, without anything to worry about. S’what a vacation is, really. The perfect kind of one. No expectations, no worries, no bookings or reservations or fees, just relaxing. And then, like you said, we could go out. Go for drives. Pick a place, maybe… maybe have a picnic.”

Aziraphale smiled so brightly it broke Crowley’s heart into a thousand pieces. “It’s a date, then.”

“Yeah.” Crowley had to try harder than he ever had not to burst into tears. Stupid, it was stupid, he’d had his angel for weeks now, months, they were married, for someone’s- “It’s a date.”


	11. Chapter 11

“I’m glad it’s working out like this. I mean, everyone’s closed for the holiday, anyway, and I think, if I set my mind to it, I can get the downstairs open by the end of January.”

“What?” Crowley looked up from the chest of drawers he’d been restaining for the back room. They weren’t supposed to do it inside, but Crowley pointed out that neither of them had a garden and the fumes weren’t exactly a hazard for supernatural beings, and anyway he’d have to wear a mask, regardless. Hazard of heightened senses. He’d been wearing one on and off during the renovation, and he looked absolutely ridiculous in it but Aziraphale wasn’t going to say anything because if he did he’d take it off and he didn’t like the idea of Crowley’s corporation getting damaged any more than Crowley probably did. Not to mention the complaining he’d undoubtedly have to endure if Crowley got a faceful of toxic chemicals every time he opened his blessed mouth.

“The closure,” Aziraphale said. “It isn’t so bad during the holiday, and I close into New Year sometimes, anyway. Keeping up appearances, I think I’d put in the reports.”

Crowley was wearing the mask, and the glasses, because staining furniture was chemically very harsh for most parts of a corporation, but Aziraphale could still tell he was smiling. “Holiday spirit was a great excuse for you. You could lock yourself in here for days, weeks, even. Meanwhile I was tempting investment bankers to do drugs, just the one time, it’s the New Year, have a little fun.”

He’d been mentioning his past misdeeds with more specificity lately. Aziraphale took it as a sign he was finally getting used to their (however tentative) safety; he also knew Crowley wasn’t one to drag good people over, at least not directly. He never had been. It was more a karmic balancing act than anything else. They’d known it for a very long time. Almost since the garden. What kept them in each other’s lives, what kept them coming back to each other over the centuries. They knew they were cancelling each other out in the end. “What are our plans for the holidays, then? Apart from the Tadfield gift exchange.”

Crowley went back to staining. “Well, after this, I don’t think I’ll be needing drugs pretty much ever again, thanks, this is absolutely repulsive, so maybe just get spectacularly drunk and make out until we fall asleep wherever we happen to be?”

“That sounds lovely.” Aziraphale placed the last book on one of the few shelves he’d been able to set up properly and stood back to admire his handiwork. “That’s geology done. I think I can do one more shelf, and then it’s time for finishing the walls.” As if to underscore his point, a few loud bangs came from upstairs, where the flat was currently being subsumed into the bookshop. Aziraphale shot Crowley an uneasy look. “I do hope they can’t smell too much of that up there.”

“The window’s’re open, as are half the ones upstairs, and they’ve all got masks and things if they need them. Speaking of which, aren’t they going to need this room tomorrow?”

“Yes. So I was thinking we just do all the tarps before tonight, and then after that…” Aziraphale trailed off, unsure. After the past few days, which had seen the upstairs start to look physically capable of holding all the books slated to go up there and the downstairs look more and more like a functioning bookshop, the prospect of having nothing to do, for however short a time before their holiday plans began, filled Aziraphale with a strange emptiness.

“Presents. We haven’t finished the presents, and besides, it’s going to take time to plan a honeymoon without miracles, even if it’s all dinner reservations and tour bookings at- huh.”

“What?”

“S’nothing. Have to check on an idea I had, is all.”

Aziraphale frowned. “But if it’s to do with our honeymoon-”

“You’ve already got us an entirely new set of dishes, watched the whole first season of Bake-Off with me, and stopped hissing at the plants whenever you walk by! Can’t I do this one li-” his phone chimed, and he hastily set the paintbrush down to fish it out of his pocket. “Oh. Are you at a stopping point?”

“Yes. Why?”

There was a knock at the door.

“Hold on,” Crowley said, scrambling up from the ground and pulling the mask off. “I’ll get the door if you get the smell? Did kind of a heavy one, yesterday, for the woman downstairs, and-”

“No problem.” Aziraphale went to replace the lid on the wood stain and miracle away the smell as Crowley went to the door.

There was a messenger there, with a smallish box and something to sign. Crowley signed, thanked him, shut the door, and leaned back against it. “Can you, erm- I don’t know if- oh, fuck it, just c’mere.”

Oh. _Oh_. Aziraphale walked up to him and stared down at the box. “Can you get it open?”

Crowley did a once-over of his nails, identified the sharpest one, and ran it along the seams of tape. Inside were two boxes, one a plush black velvet and the other a warm brown. He whipped off his glasses and tucked them into his jacket pocket.

Aziraphale reached for the black box on instinct. “Are you ready?”

Crowley took the other box and tossed the cardboard away. “Said ‘fuck it,’ didn’t I? Are _you_ ready?” He gave Aziraphale one of those looks, one of the ones that said ‘I know this might be a lot but I’m trusting you to tell me if it’s too much so if it is please do.’

If not for the reminder of constant noise from upstairs Aziraphale would’ve forgot himself and opened his wings right there. “Yes.”

Crowley smiled, and opened the box towards him. Inside was the ring Aziraphale had chosen for its perfect golden stone, that molten shifting shade that looked more like the color of Crowley’s eyes than any gem he’d ever seen. “With this ring,” Crowley said, pulling it free, dropping the box, and taking Aziraphale’s trembling left hand in both of his, “I thee wed.”

Aziraphale sobbed once.

Crowley’s eyes widened. “Are you al-”

“It’s my turn,” Aziraphale said, insistent, and sucked in a breath. He opened Crowley’s box, pulled the ring from it, and tucked the box safely in his pocket. “With this ring,” Aziraphale said, voice shaking more than it ever had, “I thee wed.” He slid the band onto Crowley’s finger.

Crowley’s hand was rock-steady, though he was crying. Smiling. A soft easy one, like all those times something could’ve gone terrible but turned out alright instead. “That’s that, then.”

Aziraphale pulled him into a hug, wanting desperately to kiss him but very aware that if he did he’d either knock something over going all winged or spawn flowers from thin air or something even more inconvenient. Then he pulled back, to look at Crowley, and said, “Can we do it tonight? I know we still have to be back here tomorrow and then the day after probably, and I know this whole vacation honeymoon thing isn’t ‘til next week but-”

“Of course we can,” Crowley said. “D’you need to finish your thing first?”

“I don’t want to,” Aziraphale admitted.

“But I wasn’t done with the dresser anyhow. And you’ll be frustrated if you don’t.”

Aziraphale sighed.

“So just go and do that, we’ll get the walls sorted, do our vacation, and when we get back you can start on the poetry section and we can work on the upstairs.”

“I think I might just make the entire floor fiction,” Aziraphale said, stepping away even though it was the last thing he wanted to do and heading back towards the shelves. “Or, actually, put some up there and some down here, but I haven’t quite decided. Seems if I do it properly I could make a lot of people very happy.”

“S’long as there’s no twenty-year-old frat boys having mid-life crises because of it,” Crowley said, returning to his dresser.

“Do they do that?”

“Alllllll the time,” Crowley said. “D’you know how much potential evil resides in college campuses? It’s like they’re all carriers or something, like when you’ve got a disease and don’t show symptoms. You know, you want to make someone’s day, use your miracles getting their course books at half price. Those things are insane.”

“Are they?” Aziraphale had started arranging the travel books, but his mind was already drifting to an upstairs corner. Contrary to other motives for similar organization, Aziraphale thought the back upstairs corner would be perfect for school books. He didn’t give half a shite how much money he made off the students, but a walk through a bookshop would give them the chance to absorb some of the centuries of love soaked into the place, maybe find something they’d actually enjoy reading.

“Yeah. I haven’t actually spent much time there, mostly just tempting the odd professor, not like the students need my help, but honestly… you should see the way their faces light up for free hot water in study spaces, it’s unconscionable.”

“Free water?”

“For tea,” Crowley said. “Went to an American library once that’s got a box of the stuff on offer with two kettles, though the students have to bring cups. Environmentally friendly, you know?”

Well, it wasn’t as if the back room wasn’t getting redone anyway. May as well give up the idea of moving the sofa and keep their off-to-the-left pocket of shop instead, start collecting secondhand mugs. “Please keep talking about the trials of university students. It’s giving me ideas.”

“You’d better be writing these down, then, because I don’t know how much I’m going to remember after all the fumes.”

Aziraphale grabbed his planner from the edge of the organized shelf it was on, flipped open to a note page, and scrawled a few bullets. “Do go on, darling.”

“Should I talk about wifi next? Or printing? No, actually, I’m not going to discuss printing, if I do this place’ll turn into a computer lab and your mission’ll get polluted with a whole lot of internet stuff even I find disgusting…”

When the work of the day was done, Crowley and Aziraphale headed home. Crowley didn’t know what one brought to a true-form-revelation/marriage/maybe-ethereal-first-time, but he definitely had to change clothes. And shower. And maybe burn the clothes. No, that’d be bad for the environment and make the smell worse. Better for everyone if he launched them into space. Have to call Elon.

After said shower he found Aziraphale had packed a picnic. It was long past dark, but, being in the middle of nowhere, Crowley supposed a minor lighting miracle wouldn’t run the risk of going noticed by humans or anyone else. The angel hesitated when he caught sight of Crowley’s wet hair. “I know it’s a bit chilly, we don’t have to do it tonight-”

“I want to if you want to,” Crowley said. “And this’ll be dry in no time, worry about me catching a cold when I’ve had time to grow it out again.”

“You’re growing it out again?”

Crowley shrugged. “May be easier just to miracle it, but I have always wondered why humans complain so much about ‘in-between’ hair lengths. Only ever made sense in a bangs context. Creative enough, you should be able to come up with something for all the other lengths, shouldn’t you?”

“Seeing as I still prefer function to form,” Aziraphale said, placing the last of his food items (whatever it was, he’d used their new storage containers so Crowley couldn’t exactly tell) in the little grocery tote he’d packed. “Are you ready?”

“Hey, I asked you that. You didn’t answer.”

Aziraphale smiled. “I think tonight would be perfect.”

“Yeah, okay,” Crowley said, turning to get his shoes so the angel didn’t see how extremely red he was. “We can leave in a minute.”

He picked a road at random and they drove until the city and the suburbs disappeared behind them. An offshoot dirt road brought them further into nowhere, and Crowley pulled over while Aziraphale made a light and started setting up the food.

They dined on the little things that were all either of them ever bothered to have in the fridge before the not-apocalypse, little parcels of bread and cheese and fruit that Aziraphale had expertly paired with the wine. They only had one bottle, enough to loosen them up but not nearly enough for either of them to be worried about things going awry. Other than that they sipped hot tea, kept piping by a double-walled cup Aziraphale had bought just a few days before, and when the food and drink were gone they laid back and looked at the stars.

“It was my job,” Crowley said. “It was everyone’s job in some way or another, s’ppose, but when it came to the architecture- I got to do a few galaxies.” He didn’t think about it much, let alone talk about it, but something about the peace of this night, or maybe the anticipation of being so near Aziraphale in all his unadulterated glory, something made Crowley want to say it.

“Are there any of yours out now?”

“Not bright. We could get a telescope, drive back out here.” And he would, he realized, like to see how things were doing. Like to see how it’d all held up. Because he was proud of that, still, proud of what he’d accomplished before and after. “Have to check the star charts first. I haven’t kept track of where everything is in a while.”

“Neither have I,” Aziraphale admitted. Then, “I didn’t do that much, up there. Humans were always my job. And all the warm emotions, the love, the compassion, all the things that tie creatures together.”

“Did you work on lots of them?”

“Other than humans? Oh, yes. Design wasn’t my department, not even close, but those little tweaks of feeling, the finer points of how each creature experiences emotions… or those good ones. Deep ones. Things that even then were instinctual.”

“Important, instincts. S’why I always figured She must have had strong ones. To have done all this, made all this, and just known…” Crowley trailed off. He squeezed Aziraphale’s hand where they lay entwined on the blanket. “Should we try?”

“The forms?”

Crowley nodded, realized the angel couldn’t see him, said, “Yeah.”

Aziraphale sat up, met his eyes. “I think I would like that.”

They packed up their picnic, everything, even the blanket, safely away in the Bentley before they strolled back out onto the grass. A wave of Crowley’s hand put out the light, and everything went dark for a split second before his eyes adjusted. The night was quiet, little gusts of wind and the occasional creatures’ rustles the only sounds. Despite the time of year, Crowley hadn’t been cold all night. He couldn’t quite tell if Aziraphale was keeping him warm or if Crowley was doing it himself. Didn’t know if it mattered, anymore. If those senses could even be pulled apart.

Time to find out, maybe. “Okay,” Crowley said, and took a deep breath. “Is this good?”

They were about five feet from each other, sitting in the grass. Aziraphale nodded. “I think so, my dear.” His face was bright in the moonlight, his eyes almost seeming to glow.

“Okay.” Crowley shut his eyes and sank, back, out, away from the physicality of the Earth and into the place where he kept his wings.

It was light, but not sterile, cool, but not cold, strange, but not unsettling. The place felt the same as always. Crowley felt his wings folded up behind him and stretched them out, could feel the energy of the place shift slightly as he did. A crack of relief went through him, tension long-held finally breaking, and he reached forward with his senses to find Aziraphale.

Wasn’t hard. Angel radiated here as he did on Earth, though light didn’t work the same way. The steady pulse of feeling Crowley usually sensed from him became a current, steady and strong, an infinite, breathing thing instead of a candle that flickered in time with his corporeal pulse. He looked like he always did, same waistcoat, same smile. The biggest difference was that Crowley could see the energy now. See his love, so much stronger and more vivid than any of the other things flowing beneath it. It stretched out, filled his field of comprehension. Far surpassed the reach of the angel’s wings. His love never began and never ended. Was accepted into Aziraphale by that thin string, that frail connection, and expanded forever by him.

Crowley could even see the string. Could feel it.

His own self rippled in response, reached out, tentative, not willing to go too far into Aziraphale’s own energy, not anywhere near enough to touch the thread.

_You can_ , Aziraphale said. _She won’t mind._

_It’s not right_ , Crowley responded. He could feel the ripples of longing shoving through him, squiggly and electric-blue and achingly familiar to the ones that came when Aziraphale was out of sight and he just wanted him there. Aziraphale must feel them, too, where their beings brushed at the edges. _Too same. Similar_ , Crowley tried to explain, _to the feeling of wanting you. This is about us._

But the explanation wasn’t necessary. Aziraphale could feel what Crowley felt pouring out of him, the precise formulation of each emotion, each response. Aziraphale understood. Said, _it’s alright._

_Not why we’re here._

Aziraphale must have tasted the resistance in Crowley, because in response he tucked the thread away, still very visible, accessible, even, but not anywhere near the center of Crowley’s field of understanding.

_Too good to me._

_Never._

_You’re beautiful._

Aziraphale’s being hummed. You _are. I’ve never seen anything like this_.

_Like-?_

But Aziraphale was already answering, _like you’re pouring yourself into everything, like you’re so you everything around can feel it_. Radiating not with love, like Aziraphale was, though in the communication Crowley could sense that, too, standing out in response to Aziraphale’s; no, Crowley radiated with confidence, with certainty, with the kind of ‘fuck you’ energy that said he was him and no one could stop it. _Beautiful_ , Aziraphale repeated.

Crowley could not respond, because that feeling was something he had always wanted to embody but never been certain he’d known how.

_S’just you_ , Aziraphale said. _Just you._

_You’re better._

_Not better. Different._

Crowley reached, overlapped a little more with Aziraphale, and Aziraphale welcomed it.

He had worried, when he’d considered doing this, that they might get carried away. That they might forget themselves. But the more Aziraphale let him see, the more he let Aziraphale see, the more Crowley realized that was impossible. It was not that their love could not consume, could not destroy, nor was it their own desire to protect each other holding them back. It was that too much of them was different. Not oil and water, not exactly, because they mixed, they did, Crowley could feel it just starting, the tentative beginnings of it. Too new for too much, but even now Crowley could taste his own mouth from when Aziraphale had kissed him, knew Aziraphale could feel the lightning strike of giddiness Crowley sometimes got looking at him and remembering, consciously, that he loved him. There weren’t words for this. It was all feeling. The way humans sensed each other heightened a thousandfold, two fellow creatures memories and thoughts and feelings comingling not through effort, but mutual understanding, desire, love.

Crowley finally felt a tug from his body. _We really should start breathing soon._

He and Aziraphale both fell back into their corporations, breathing hard, wings bursting out of either of their backs.

“I should stop time next time,” Crowley said, and coughed.

“Don’t be silly,” Aziraphale panted. “Too much… it’d be too hard. With that and what we just did. What… what did we do?”

Crowley laughed. He understood how the angel felt, even back in their normal, if supernaturally sensitive, corporations. He’d never done that before. Wasn’t something you did. Weren’t words for it. True forms were personal, the most personal, and unless you trusted someone with your whole being- Crowley laughed again. “Y’know slides? Transparent pictures?”

Aziraphale nodded.

“We’re slides, and we went over and under each other. But looking through both. Didn’t mix too much, that time.” Closest he could get. To saying ‘I felt your fear when I left the park’ without shattering them both, at least just then. Crowley felt spun from glass.

“I want to touch you, but I-”

“Time,” Crowley said. “Time, angel. Just stay a while.”

They sat, looking between each other and the great calm expanse of nature around them when one of them couldn’t hold the gaze any longer.

“I’m sorry. I should have realized-”

“Don’t,” Crowley said. “S’fine. And I don’t… it’s not mine, you see, and this was about us, that’s why I couldn’t- but She’s part of you. Was part of me. Made me. So maybe. Another time?” Crowley met his eyes.

Aziraphale nodded. “Only if you want to.”

Crowley smiled ruefully at that. “You know, we sound ridiculous. We’ve had countless discussions on what we do and don’t want to do, and we trust each other to let the other one know if it’s too much, yet both our stubborn arses keep insisting-”

“Alright,” Aziraphale sighed. “But I’ll only let up asking if you do.”

It was a fair request. They were good enough at sensing each other’s moods, and skilled enough, now, at taking the edge off the whole love thing, that neither of them was afraid of panicking again. Knew it’d be okay even if they did. “Alright,” Crowley said. “But m’still asking. When we’re out. And I know it’s a double standard but if I’m not boiling mad or deep in thought or something, you really don’t need to-”

“I’m asking anyway,” Aziraphale insisted. “It’s respectful.”

“Okay, yes, but we’ve established that pending further instruction I am always willing to touch-”

“How about now?” Aziraphale interrupted.

“Bastard,” Crowley said, and met him halfway.


	12. Chapter 12

What with the almost dying thing (or almost losing their corporations), Aziraphale figured it’d be better for both of them if they limited their noncoporeal interactions in the future. Crowley kept saying he’d stop time for it; Aziraphale kept replying that until they could do tongue stuff _without regular breaks_ , he _was not_ , under _any circumstances_ -

“Fine,” Crowley said. Then, “D’you think it’s weird? I’m the one who wants the otherworldy intimacy and you’re trying to get my pants off the human way?”

“You did always call me a hedonist.”

“Teasing, angel, always teasing.”

But Aziraphale knew neither of them believed that, and gave Crowley a look that said as much.

Crowley sighed. “Okay, yes, does my acknowledging this earn me any metaphysical sex p- _hey_ ,” Crowley broke off, equal parts surprised and affronted, when Aziraphale smacked him lightly on the arm.

Aziraphale huffed. “I don’t understand why when you’re worried about our corporations here you’re being perfectly reasonable, but when I bring up the fact that leaving our bodies without due attention risks their destruction-”

“ _Noncorporeal orgasms_ , angel. We’re trying to work our way up to noncorporeal-”

“And I want corporeal orgasms, Crowley, but we can’t always get what we want.”

Crowley frowned. “I could-”

“No, that isn’t what I meant,” Aziraphale said, flapping his hand. Wasn’t as if they hadn’t gotten up to as much as they could without risking corporeal catastrophe. Crowley knew that Aziraphale knew that if he wanted something he need only ask. Wasn’t as if Crowley’d ever said no to him for... well, for anything. Which seemed a bit of a problem, actually, they’d have to discuss that at some point, wouldn’t they? But maybe now was not the time. Aziraphale decided a change of subject was in order. It had been quite a few years, after all, since either of them had purchased a Christmas present. “How many days have we got?”

“Enough. And the gang’s coming shopping tomorrow, remember? Can always ask if we’re really stuck.” Crowley was stretched out on the living room sofa, coffee mug balanced on his abdomen. “We got that fancy multi-tool for Newt, and Anathema the shawl, and Pepper’ll be dressed to kill come Christmas.”

“Yes, but what if Wensley doesn’t like the book?” Aziraphale was sitting rather stiffly in one of their normally very comfortable chairs. His discomfort must have to do with all the worrying. Well. Least it was better than wallowing in aimlessness.

“Angel, it’s a book about the most interesting people no one ever knew about-”

“Well, _we_ knew about some of them.”

“-how could you think he wouldn’t like that? Annie said she asked what his favorite subject was over their weekly study time and he had to make pro-con lists for all of them to figure it out.”

“Weekly study time?” Aziraphale vaguely remembered hearing about it, but he’d been rather distracted by Crowley that day.

“Yeah, they go to Anathema’s and pretend to be doing homework when really I think they’re just watching documentaries their parents wouldn’t approve of. Or Adam’s wouldn’t, anyway, pretty sure if Pepper’s mum found out what she got up to in her free time she’d be so proud a trip to Disneyland’d be involved.”

“We’ve never been to Disneyland,” Aziraphale pointed out.

Crowley sounded outraged. “Oi, what was that one time then?”

Aziraphale sighed. “That was business, Crowley, we didn’t get to go on any rides and the only reason I had a chance to eat anything was because our charge got in an extensive argument with a cast member-”

“Erm.”

Realization hit Aziraphale like a comically-improbable cartoon piano. “When?”

“They’ve got Star Wars, now, angel, you can’t have expected me to let that open without seeing all the mania firsthand, not to mention I might’ve had a few temptations back when Animal Kingdom opened, and-”

“That settles it, then,” Aziraphale said primly, crossing his legs and relaxing into the chair at the same time. “I doubt the necessary miracles would be prudent in time for this honeymoon, but I’m sure we could-”

“Hang on,” Crowley said, raising one hand from the mug-balancing to further his point. “Hold on just one bollocking minute. You want to make one of our honeymoons be Disneyland?”

“I was under the impression we were talking about Disney World, given the greater availability of-”

Crowley was smiling in a rather snake-like way. “Oh you are going to hate Florida. And Epcot. Wow.” Crowley sat up to stare at him, expression turning more innocent than it usually ever was. “You’ll really go to Disney World with me?”

Aziraphale recalled some rant Crowley’d gone on about flavoured churros and decided that yes, even if the flavours were mostly colored sugar, his culinary curiosity demanded he taste for himself. “Didn’t you say Epcot had wine flights? What’s not to like about wine flights?”

“Riiiight, the booze. Forgot about that one. Maybe you would like Epcot after all.” Crowley drained the mug and set it on the coffee table. The mischief crept back into his eyes again. “Still want to stay here for this honeymoon?”

Aziraphale met his gaze, let his own travel all the way down Crowley’s body very suggestively, and then glanced back up. “Yes.”

“Okay,” Crowley said, standing, “I need a walk, when I come back we’re wrapping the gifts, Jesus fucking…” he trailed off swearing as he left the flat.

Aziraphale smiled into his mug. Even annoying the dickens out of each other he still enjoyed every second with Crowley.

Except he really did want to make it to the skin on skin sooner rather than later.

So, when Crowley got back, Aziraphale practically climbed into his lap, asking, “Is this alright?”

Crowley laughed. “Yes, it’s fine, we just went thirty minutes- oh, is that what that was?” He narrowed his eyes.

Aziraphale pulled back a tick. “What?”

Crowley’s hand on the back of his neck didn’t let Aziraphale get far, though Crowley’s suddenly confused expression was rather jarring on the heels of the desire of the moment before. “Am I agreeing to being this horny around you because after so much time together I just wanted to turn around and come straight back home?”

Aziraphale stared down at him. “What?” he repeated.

“You know I like spending time with you.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, not at all sure where this discussion was headed, especially given he was still on top of Crowley on the sofa.

“And, like, we kept saying we should split up more often and then utterly failing to do it until just now.”

Aziraphale thought back on the past week and realized he was right. “Yes. And? I don’t think I care whether or not this is an overzealous response to having our energies back in the same room.” If he was being honest, that was exactly what it was, just- after all that safe safe safe safe around each other there was nothing else, short of switching forms, which they couldn’t do again right now they’d break the flat or suffocate or something- ah. “Ah.”

“Oi, what? No, I don’t like that, you look less turned on, I may be much more logical than you are about this but that was not the end goal of this line of questioning.”

“Well.” Aziraphale climbed off Crowley, who groaned but sat up properly anyway. “I was just thinking our forms might do the same thing, you know, as much energy as we could get after being apart, reassuring, but I don’t think we should risk it here, except-”

“Oh. Oho. Alright. I see where this is going. Please continue.” Crowley crossed his arms.

Aziraphale sighed. “Am I being a hypocrite?”

“You just stopped yourself! Angel, what- you know what, never mind, I’ll get naked right now if it stops all this guilt business-” Crowley started pulling off his shirt.

“What?” Aziraphale would never, in a thousand years, admit that his most pressing concern in that split second, apart from the obvious not-wanting-to-discorporate-Crowley, was that they didn’t have any lube.

Crowley chucked his shirt into a corner and laughed. “I don’t want you going on about this guilt thing again, okay? That’s the exact opposite of what good sex is, never mind bringing the complications of nonnormative sexuality into it.”

Aziraphale took in Crowley’s expression and laughed himself. “My dear.”

“What?” Crowley looked determined and outraged and ready to go on a very impassioned rant and it was adorable and beautiful and everything Aziraphale loved about him.

“While I admire your intensity, that isn’t at all a factor.”

Crowley narrowed his eyes; his glasses were long-forgotten, probably on the floor somewhere in the vicinity of his recently-discarded shirt. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. Any guilt I feel, I can assure you, is an exclusive side-effect of me feeling like I’m pushing you.” A hint of that twisting awfulness from the night they’d got their rings came back, and Aziraphale shut his eyes for a moment.

Crowley made an exasperated sound, reminding Aziraphale he was there and making his fears seem that much more ridiculous both at once. A tinge of hope bubbled up in Aziraphale’s chest when Crowley dug his fingers into the one of Aziraphale’s thighs he still had hold of and said, “But you’re not. I’d have sex right now if I wasn’t sure it’d destroy both our corporations!”

“That’s just it,” Aziraphale said, seizing on Crowley’s honesty and finally finding the right words, “that’s all of it. I would never want to make you feel like you were risking my corporation- because I know neither of us cares about our own, it’s ridiculous, we should work on it- I don’t want to do anything that you’d perceive as risky for me, and I know you feel the same way, you _understand_ , so the idea that I could disregard all that for something as insignificant as a moment of lust-” he cut off at Crowley’s laugh. It was open and awed and not even a little bitter. “What?” Aziraphale said.

Crowley tucked a leg back on the sofa and turned to fully face him. “We’re overthinking sex. Sex is the opposite of thinking, angel. It’s the antithesis of reason. As far as you can get from it.”

Aziraphale could have pointed out that celestial sex was supposed to be without sin, or that any act of love, with love as its sole intention, even self-love and indifference toward the other, was just as pure. Could have said that love and any acts that might go with it were reason perfected, love being the basis for all creation. Could have pointed out how uniquely qualified the two of them were for overthinking anything between them- they’d been doing it for thousands of years, after all. Only Aziraphale couldn’t say anything, because all of this was so absurd it was eclipsing the guilt, making it seem so absolutely nonsensical. “Oh. Oh, my dear.” And then he was laughing, too.

“Right?” Crowley said between laughs. “I mean, talk about us being us!”

When they’d calmed a bit, though, Crowley asked, “So, you okay?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

Aziraphale held his eyes. “Yes, I am really okay now.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows. “You know, as long as we keep the whole precedent of overthinking this up, I am not _opposed_ -” Then, when Aziraphale’s mouth-first assault let up, a triumphant “Finally!” that almost had Aziraphale laughing again.

After a while they were back where they started, only without the halting uncertainty of before.

“Hey,” Crowley said as Aziraphale mouthed at his chest. “There’s a loophole, right? We can still _almost_ have sex, like, a lot. I mean, we can still only go, what, like five minutes heavy snogging without worrying we’ll explode? But as long as we keep our clothes on and aren’t, like, making sappy eye-contact or something-”

“Cheeky through-the-trousers handjobs?” Aziraphale said.

Crowley stared up at him, smiling in a rather thunderstruck way. “See, _that_ didn’t kill me, so I think-”

Aziraphale quieted him rather effectively after that, barring long strings of profanity and unintelligible noises. Neither of them blew up. It was wonderful.

The Tadfield contingent was remarkably on time. Crowley could’ve sworn their train line had been delayed- not that he’d been checking.

“We took an early enough one,” Anathema explained. “Figure if we wanted to hit all the places for their parents’ gifts it would be better to add extra time. Speaking of, children, do not mention to your parents I took you to a construction zone because I’d rather not explain the angelic redundancy of hard hats.”

“We’re good at keeping secrets, in case you forgot,” Adam said, and fell onto the nearest bit of rug. The others followed suit, sprawling about the prime sitting area of bookshop, admiring the finished walls and floors and ceilings and partly-finished everything else while Aziraphale put up the happy holidays renovation sign and went in back to get the tea going.

“How’re our auras?” Crowley asked, deliberately casual.

“Yours is blinding yellow,” Anathema said. “Like, it hurts to look at it. And his is…” she hesitated, tipping her head in Aziraphale’s direction. He was visible in the back room through the newly-widened opening. “I’m having trouble putting a color on it. It’s kind of shifting. Through the spectrum of the bisexual flag.”

“He doesn’t know the-”

“Pink, blue, and purple, thank you,” Aziraphale said. He strode in, set the tea tray down, and took the cushion next to Crowley’s. “We live in London. My shop’s in Soho. I have witnessed plenty of parades, not to mention the shop two doors down sells the whole gamut of flags.”

Crowley felt his expression bypass surprise and sail straight into pride. Aziraphale looked delighted about it.

“Do they have little ones?” Wensleydale asked.

“And medium ones,” Aziraphale said.

“Like A6? I mean, like those ones you put in pencil cups.”

Aziraphale nodded, then jumped a bit. “Crowley!”

“Aziraphale!”

“We need some of those for the shop! And historical ones, we should see if we can’t find some in antique shops- d’you think there are any- oh, I didn’t mean to be rude, Wensley, I’m sorry.”

If anything, Crowley thought, Wensleydale looked amused by Aziraphale’s enthusiasm. “S’alright.”

“Text me what you want, yeah?” Crowley asked. He’d tasted enough shittiness in his life to want to keep Wensley far away from an unsolicited ‘which acronym are you’ conversation. No thanks. Exploring welcoming minority spaces was the kind of thing people deserved to experience in peace. Not to mention the place Aziraphale was talking about may or may not have also been a sex shop. “Don’t think you have time today, if- well- s’just say the explanations required for that particular shop’d be too time consuming for Annie here.”

Pepper snorted. “Doubt it.”

Crowley did his best to look unfazed by Pepper’s attitude. Pepper looked like she wasn’t buying it. Blessed over-perceptive, documentary-watching- Crowley cleared his throat and turned to Wensley again. “Do you have a phone?”

“He can use mine,” Anathema said. “Or email.”

“That I do have,” Wensley said. “It’s how Brian and I send each other funny videos.”

“None of our parents want us having phones,” Brian explained. “Or, well, they didn’t exactly get together and discuss it, but sometimes I think they did- probably have a text chain- because Pepper’s mum said no unless she’s in activities, and Adam’s parents think he can wait ‘til he’s sixteen, which sounds _mental_ to me, and mine and Wensley’s parents both think we should be in secondary school first.”

Adam shook his head. “It makes sense for us to get them soon. I’m not waiting until A-levels. How will we start a club?”

“Before phones, whatsit…” Crowley said under his breath.

“What kind of club are you starting?” Aziraphale asked, correctly identifying that Crowley was looking for a word and it might take him hours, or days, before he found it.

“Paranormal research,” Adam said. When Aziraphale and Crowley exchanged a very obviously worried glance, he added, “No, nothing like your lot. I’m talking about the stuff that’s got nothing to do with you.”

“And you’re sure you turned off, the, er- the thing?” Crowley asked, not knowing how much he could or should say in front of the others.

Aziraphale didn’t sound too keen on the idea of the Them holding Adam accountable for any future reality-bending events, either. “We aren’t trying to scold you, my dear, it’s just-” he wrung his hands. Classic Aziraphale for ‘quite in a bind.’

But Adam only grinned. “Really. It’s fine. If anything goes weird I’ll start a D&D club or something. Take up football. The weather was horrible yesterday,” he added, as if his disagreement with weather patterns was enough to prove he no longer had powers, which, okay, it was evidence, but it didn’t prove anything.

“It rained,” Pepper said. “Couldn’t go out. We had to sit inside and watch Disney movies because our disc player’s broken.”

“Wait,” Crowley said, temporarily abandoning his word-hunt. “If the player was broken, how did you-”

“Mum’s still got VHS,” Pepper explained. “Baby videos. Although, yeah, illegal sites were my second choice.”

Crowley was not sure how to respond to that. Except to give himself a mental pat on the back for his choice of gift for her, because honestly, if anyone didn’t need the boost it was Pepper, but that meant a jacket would only heighten her powers of assertion. Forget impressed, Crowley admired her. Girl could give lectures about getting one’s shit together. Probably make a killing at it.

But Aziraphale’s mind had gone elsewhere. “Is that a thing people do? Baby videos?” Oh, angel. Aziraphale’s expression waned when he caught sight of the seven sets of eyes telling him he was hopeless. “Right. Yes. Memories. Lifespans. Wonderful idea. Understand new phones a bit better now.”

“You can give him the ‘new’ bit, we’re old enough for that to count,” Crowley said.

“Hey!” Aziraphale tried to glare at him, but couldn’t quite manage it.

Crowley really loved him.

“If I get anything smarter than a flip phone I burn it out in the first hour,” Newt said.

“That’s weird,” Brian said. “I was watching a show the other day from like ten years ago, and everyone had flip phones, but they were doing all the same things people do on regular phones, so-” he cut off.

Crowley followed Brian’s gaze to Annie, who was wearing a ‘please don’t’ expression. Well. Couldn’t blame her.

“Anyway,” Brian said hastily, “I would highly recommend anime to-”

“Eugh!” Pepper’s moan almost made Crowley jump. “For the millionth time, you don’t have to be a good actor-”

“But they are, though, they have to convey it all just with voices-”

After which the lot of them had a spirited debate that involved the eight of them sitting through an entire episode of Evangelion on Crowley’s phone (he tried to point out to Brian that the sorts of existential crises brought on from plotlines like that were best postponed for A-levels, but Brian gave him a meaningful look that put an end to that argument). The division of opinions placed Annie, Adam, and Pepper on a side against the others and the idea of anime in general, though Crowley’d taken at least twenty extra minutes of winning over, as had Zira, after the concept of fanservice came up.

“Holy crap,” Anathema said, glancing at her phone. “We’ve been at this for an hour. And the tea was lovely, it was lovely to see you, but we really should be going.”

“Right,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale, who’d been leaning over Crowley’s phone with Brian watching an episode of something much more appropriate for his age but still probably a bit out of his depth, needed a nudge from Crowley to come back to himself. “Yes. We- erm- lots to do, I’m afraid.”

They had never got around to wrapping those presents. “Nice to have you. Come by when the place is finished. We’ll not have a grand opening, don’t need that kind of attention, but if you like you can come over and the grownups can get smashed.”

“What about us?” Adam asked. “Our parents wouldn’t let us out with Anathema again if she came b-”

“I will drive you back to Tadfield,” Crowley said. He’d noticed Aziraphale peering intently at his phone again already and didn’t want Brian to get sucked into what was shaping up to be Aziraphale’s first elective marathon of anything but reading.

“You’d do that?” Pepper asked.

“Yes, I’d do that, I may be a demon but I’m not about to endanger the lives of- I mean- compliment me and I’m taking back your Christmas gifts.”

Pepper sneered, but evidently decided not to risk it.

No sooner had he and Zira watched the group round a corner than Aziraphale was grabbing for Crowley’s phone, which he’d snuck back while the angel was saying goodbye to everyone.

“You know, I can put that up on the TV at home.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. “Could you?”

“Yeah. What’s got you so- oh. Yeah. Even _I_ watched that one.” Crowley found himself staring into a Japanese webpage for the Ouran High anime. “You should read them. Think they go a bit farther.”

“Do they? I didn’t realize- I mean, we have been to Japan, though not together I don’t think, and the bookshops were impressive, but it didn’t occur to me-”

“Oh, shit,” Crowley said.

“What?”

“Well, you’re going to have to be careful of how you do this, because the internet can be truly vile, but there are a few other things I think you’d like. Now that you’re, you know, generally open to the concept of television.”

Aziraphale was looking at him with cautious excitement. Also a little like Crowley’d sprouted horns or something equally incongruous for a serpent, but that was probably because even Zira recognized the thick line between ‘anime’ and ‘cool’ as soon as he’d laid eyes on enough of it. “I didn’t know you liked- well- I did know you liked Real Housewives, but other forms of popular media, generally speaking, when they aren’t lauded as universal objective enjoyments or being deployed ironically in the art world-”

“That was it, actually. When I was doing the art thefts. That’s the guy who got me into them. He was a forger, I think? Livingston, Liddington, something like that.”

“Huh.” Aziraphale had tended to respond to past mentions of Crowley’s misdeeds with rote disapproval, but as of late he’d been showing only genuine reactions. Evidently art theft wasn’t worthy of even a huff. “Well, I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but-”

“You want to go buy this entire show in a physical copy because even if it’s television you still want a physical copy, like me with my CDs, and then watch the whole thing right now as a nice lazy kick-off to vacation?”

Zira blinked. “Yes.”

Crowley held out a hand for his phone. “Come on, need to find out where to buy them, no miracling things back in stock anymore…”

Within minutes, they had an address for a shop in Camden and were pulling on their jackets.

“How do you do that, Crowley?”

“Do what, know when you like something? Easy, eaten a thousand meals with you.”

“No, not me, it’s- anticipating what people want in general. I couldn’t help but get the impression from today’s tea that the gifts we’ve found already would be perfect for their intended recipients, and, while I’d like to think I contributed, it really was you doing most of the choosing.”

Crowley smiled. “Perks of being a demon. Can’t know how to tempt someone if you can’t figure out what they want.”

“Huh,” Aziraphale said again. He was saying it rather a lot that day and he almost never had before and honestly Crowley would drive them to Manchester (someone forbid) if it put that beautiful delighted-surprised look on the angel’s face again, so thank someone for Camden.

“Radios!” Crowley shouted.

Aziraphale started. “What?”

“That’s what you could do before phones. They’ve got limited range, but it’s Tadfield, right? Not likely to go outside however many miles- angel, come on!”

“Come on where?”

“We’ve got to get them radios for Christmas! Can get them after your show! It’s perfect!”

“That does sound like a good idea, darling, but we already got them that other stuff. Which, as discussed, is all rather perfect.”

“We’re giving that to them, too, don’t be silly. We just have to make sure they don’t see us. Where’d Annie say they were going? South, right? That’s good, nowhere near where we’ll be…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last 3 next week  
> and yes the Disney World honeymoon will be a supplementary short addition to this series  
> and yes it's a series


	13. Chapter 13

Their honeymoon commenced with thirteen hours of high school romance, broken into two days for food and naps. Crowley got to be the big spoon because Aziraphale was enraptured, and anyway it had nothing to do with getting to look at his face as he soaked in a piece of visual media with more unadulterated enjoyment than he had since the they’d seen _Curious Incident_ a few years ago.

Not to mention they’d never quite sat like this and being the one to do the cuddling was just as delightful as the other way ‘round.

Both nights Crowley had to drag Zira to bed, and the second one he had to add a cheeky through-the-trousers handjob because both of them were very confident Aziraphale’d go on an obsessive spree and be up all night reading otherwise.

Next day over breakfast, which was quite nice now they’d accumulated food, Aziraphale frowned over his scone and asked, “What do people do on honeymoons?”

“Well, sex. And spending time together. Very- er- relaxing, that’s a vacation thing.” But they’d just done that. For two whole days. And the spending time together part was a pathological necessity for both of them since the notpocalypse, energy exhaustion or no. “And I guess the relaxing is- well, it’s all sort of connected. S’a cycle. Party at the wedding, or go out during the honeymoon, have as much sex as you can, crash and recover from it, and then start over. Until it’s time to go home,” he added, noticing yet another potential problem with the naming of their current romantic interlude.

“But we are home,” Aziraphale said.

“And can’t completely have sex without discorporating,” Crowley confirmed.

“Yet,” Aziraphale said sharply. “Can’t completely have sex without discorporating _yet_ , let’s not have a negative attitude.”

“Yes, angel. Right. So...” Crowley stared off into the middle distance for a moment. “Want to do our own version, then?”

“How?”

“Get dressed,” Crowley said, idea pulling an Aphrodite (or a him, as it were) and springing full-formed in his mind. “If we’re spending time together in London we’re going to do it right.”

Aziraphale went to get dressed, looking intrigued.

Crowley knew London. He knew his parts and Zira’s and all the ones that overlapped, knew which sections were for doing what and how to tell if a café'd be good just by sniffing really hard standing right outside it and how crowded a place would actually be inside with a three-second glance through a window. He knew which spots were quietest at which times of day and which black cab drivers were almost as good as he was and how to know exactly how many minutes past the hour it was based on the angles of the shadows in St. James’s Park. Given a day, or a week, or hopefully forever, Crowley was confident he could keep looping Aziraphale around to new and lovely places; it didn’t matter they’d been everywhere, because by time they got ‘round to visiting somewhere again it had changed, was new again, and everything was lovely in a place you already loved.

Despite the cold, he knew it’d be better if they walked. Felt right. Crowley started mapping places in his head. Where hadn’t they been recently? What would Aziraphale enjoy?

Crowley was, of course, already dressed, because if he hadn't put clothes on after getting up that morning the temptation of crawling right back into bed and sleeping through their entire first honeymoon curled in each other’s arms would’ve been irresistible. He pulled on his shoes and jacket with mounting excitement. Then, when he saw Aziraphale stood in the bedroom doorway, “God, you’re gorgeous.”

He was looking sharper than usual in a pale blue shirt and vibrant bow tie underneath the tried-and-true waistcoat and jacket. His shoes were even shiny. And he was blushing. “Oh, Crowley, don’t.”

“Why not? It’s our honeymoon and I mean it, nothing happening in vain over here. Ready to go?” He offered Aziraphale his hand.

Aziraphale made no attempt to ask where they were going as they headed outside; he seemed content to let himself be led.

“Are you going to ask?”

“I trust whatever it is, I’ll enjoy it very much, especially if I’m doing it with you.”

It was Crowley’s turn to blush. Quite undemonic- quite human of him. As was his saying, “darling” just to get the angel back for the blushing, because it only made Crowley redder but it had to be worth something, anyway, right?

“Well, it’s true,” Aziraphale said, squeezing his hand a fraction as they walked. “I enjoy everything we do together. And we’ve been doing things I like the past two days. It’s time you had a turn deciding.”

Crowley could have said he’d mapped out the day with the express purpose of choosing places Aziraphale would like, but the whole ‘as long as I’m with you’ thing was true for him, as well, so he decided against it. They were walking north through Marylebone. It was chilly, but their overcoats had endured much worse, and they’d each have a hot drink in hand soon enough.

“Oh, I haven’t come up here in ages,” Aziraphale said as they finally stepped through the open gate at the southeastern corner of Regent’s Park.

“Neither have I,” Crowley said. They’d met there a few times, but it was a bit far from their respective homes, which were at most a ten-minute walk from each other, to have been a regular haunt of theirs. “When we drove past the other day I was thinking it might be nice to see the gardens with no one around, even if it is freezing. But this is just the first place. We’re going to have a nice day out and by the end of it we’ll be so tired from PDA we’ll go right to sleep.”

“PDA?”

“Public displays of affection.” A wave of uncertainty assaulted Crowley. “Unless, of course, I mean I get it if you don’t-”

Aziraphale cut him off with a kiss on his cheek.

It was all Crowley could do to keep hold of his limbs. “Okay, yeah. That’s the plan, then.”

“You won’t be too cold here?” The concern in Zira’s voice was warm enough to make Crowley melt.

“No. I think I- I think I’ll be fine for a bit. And there’s always a café or shop or bus, isn’t there?”

“I’m beginning to think this plan isn’t much of a plan at all.”

“More of a checklist,” Crowley said. He tore his eyes away from Zira’s stunning gaze for a moment and took in the wintry scenery. “S’long as we do a few of the things on the list it doesn’t matter what order we do them in.”

“I’ll have to embrace the spontaneity, then,” Aziraphale said. “Change of pace from the bookshop.”

Crowley laughed. Normally the bookshop embodied chaos, but as of late it’d been the opposite. “S’ppose so. Cup of tea?” They’d made it down the Broad Walk to the little café over the road. Crowley, despite having both hands in his pockets and one arm looped through Aziraphale’s, was almost shivering.

Zira dragged him into the blissful heat of the café and stepped up to the counter. “A mocha and an americano, please.” When Crowley attempted to get out his wallet, Aziraphale said, “Keep warm,” and nudged him towards the nearest stool.

Crowley grumblingly acquiesced. “Why don’t you get something to eat? I know you won’t let me leave ‘til I’m warm.”

He got a danish.

They sat in the bubble of heat, peering out the door at the occasional fellow walkers. Crowley determined to absorb as much heat as he could, because he wanted to walk among the gardens with his angel and maybe find a secluded bench to snog on, weather or no.

“This is nice,” Zira said after taking a sip of his mocha. “Very tranquil.”

“Oh, no, yeah. ‘Tis. Haven’t gotten to do this ever. Just walk. Just be.”

The warmth in Aziraphale’s eyes roared up like a raucous bonfire; Crowley could feel it across the table. “Just be, I like that. No obligations, no worries. Just whatever we damn well please.”

Crowley smiled. “Bless it all.”

In the interest of having free hands both to point things out to Aziraphale and drag him indecently close, Crowley downed his drink before they went out again. There were a few more people in the park, jogging, walking their dogs. There was much more open space there than St. James’s. A few brave souls were even kicking a ball around, hands bare for retrieving it. The thought of letting the wind at his hands again made Crowley wince.

It was nice, though, being out. The sky was that opaque blue-grey-white that seemed perpetually uncertain of its cloudiness, softening the sunlight and making it look near sunset even though it was still six hours away. The grass kept its color in spite of the cold, as did the bushes, and Crowley was struck by the fact he was in a place he’d never had to worry. No clandestine meetings, no emergency conversations or over-the-shoulder glances or ‘unexpected’ assaults. No one looking, no one watching. Just him and Aziraphale and a bunch of humans and peace.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Aziraphale asked.

“I love you. I love feeling safe with you. I love being able to do whatever this is without worrying about if-” Crowley sucked in a chilly breath. “I love you. I love this.”

“It is rather wonderful, isn’t it?” Aziraphale followed Crowley down a narrower path, towards the gardens, staring around appreciatively. Then his eyes snapped back to Crowley. “And I love you, too, of course.”

“Stop,” Crowley said, grateful for the warmth of the blush in spite of himself.

“Are you a-”

“No, no, s’fine,” Crowley cut him off, determined Zira’s concern not last a second longer. “I’m just afraid I’ll start glowing, is all.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, his own energy pulsing a bit at that. Surprise. Understanding. Pleasure.

They stayed quiet until they reached the winding garden paths, though they were communicating anyway via little nudges and bursts of energy the whole way there. Among the hibernating rosebushes there was plenty of statuary to discuss, long-dead artists to remember, strategically-situated benches to seek out. After an indeterminate amount of time making out on one of these benches, shielded from the wind by a few obliging tree trunks, Aziraphale declared it was time they get warm again.

“I’m warm,” Crowley protested, barely managing to keep his teeth from clattering together. “Body heat.”

“Of which you have little of your own to begin with.” The angel rearranged their arms so Crowley’s hands were in his pockets again and Aziraphale’s arm was wrapped tight around his waist as was possible through coats. “Time for the next place, I think?”

“Fine,” Crowley said. “But it’s close, so we’re walking.”

Aziraphale sighed and rose from the bench with him.

They headed south again, out of a different park gate.

“We’re not going to the Sherlock Holmes museum?” Zira asked.

“No,” Crowley said. “Honestly, what kind of- just, here, come on…” They sailed past the museum and ‘round a corner to a little Japanese restaurant tucked into an old arcade. Even before they made it to the building proper Crowley noticed the temperature shoot up and sighed in relief.

“Have we been here before?” Aziraphale asked as they were lead to a table.

“Maybe a while ago. Not recently.”

“Ooh, they’ve got a specials board!”

After a few cups of tea and rather a lot of Zira rubbing Crowley’s hands between his own, Crowley was feeling back to a normal temperature and looking forward to the rest of the things they could do, even if they would involve more walking outside. “Well, we can take some buses, I can’t expect you to subject such a nice pair of trousers to that much abuse straightaway-”

“I bought these over thirty years ago,” Aziraphale protested. “It wouldn’t be unreasonable for me to wear them out.”

Crowley stared.

Zira sighed. “Alright, I know, out of character, but you have to admit there was no way out for me there.”

Crowley tipped his glass.

Lunch was delectable, and at Crowley’s behest they boarded an eastbound bus afterwards. “This is exciting,” Aziraphale said. “I usually know where I’m headed, even if you’re driving.”

“Ha ha,” Crowley said, but he didn’t look especially put out. Looked rather amused, actually, like even the pretense of annoyance wasn’t worth it on a day like that one.

Aziraphale was inclined to agree.

Crowley had them off the bus much sooner than expected. When Aziraphale noted this, he said, “Well, you’d’ve made me stop for tea again halfway there to get warm, so,” and shrugged.

Oh, Aziraphale loved him.

They were at the British Museum, where there was an exhibition on about Islamic influences to Western artwork. Ever the bibliophile, Aziraphale had to stop at the Magna Carta first, of course, one couldn’t visit the place without paying homage to one of the most amazing feats of historical writing, especially when both of them (or Crowley had been nearby anyway) had been there when it was created. Despite all the times they’d met in the museum to discuss work, they had only rarely had time for a stroll around the artifacts, and even then it was difficult to appreciate the finer workings of a carving when one was negotiating acts of divine disobedience.

It was refreshing, if a bit disheartening, to hear Crowley blurt, “I was there when they stole that!” every time they passed a relevant item.

After refreshing their memberships and ordering a print for the bookshop wall, Crowley said, “Okay, good place, it’s a walk but the sun’s out, I’m fine, angel,” and took them through Russell Square. Aziraphale was hoping it wasn’t too far, wherever they were going, when Crowley let out a little gasp and dragged him towards a nearby bush. “Look, angel, looooook!”

The bush was still beautifully green, but that wasn’t what had caught Crowley’s attention; vibrant magenta flowers, so saturated in color they almost glowed, were still in full bloom among the leaves.

Aziraphale was torn about what to stare at, because the flowers were lovely but Crowley’s expression was breathtaking. Rapturous, really. He gasped again and fumbled for his phone. “I’m taking a pi-”

“Why don’t you have gloves? I’m buying you gloves,” Aziraphale said.

“The fingers, they block the thing!” Crowley already looked uncomfortable baring his hands. Aziraphale attempted to take the phone from him, insisting he could manage a picture, but Crowley said, “No, I wanna do it, just hold on-” and then twisted into a ridiculous crouch to get the angle he wanted.

Crowley, Aziraphale decided. He was looking at Crowley the rest of the time they were stopped by this bush and the rest of the walk and the rest of the day and the rest of existence.

When Crowley finally tore his eyes from the flowers and re-pocketed his poor hands, Aziraphale looped their arms again. “They make gloves for that.”

“Not- oh, you mean the touchy screeny ones,” Crowley said. “They never work. S’a scam.”

“I’m sure they work. There’s someone using them over there, look,” Aziraphale tilted his head.

“Those are cloth ones. They wouldn’t match.”

“I’m sure if they make cloth ones they make leather ones-”

This argument continued until they reached their destination, Gay’s the Word.

Aziraphale had been there before, of course he had, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember the last time. “Crowley.”

“Yeah?” He furrowed his brow, concerned.

“No, darling, you- I- _Gay’s the Word_.”

Crowley smiled, a wide bright thing that just a few months ago he wouldn’t have dared let onto his face outdoors, never mind in the middle of a crowded street. “Well, it’s the word, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale bustled them forward in a poor attempt to keep from crying.

The shop was small and warm and perfectly jammed with books, shelves snuggled tight. Aziraphale headed to the back for strategy’s sake, but this plan fell apart almost immediately, because there was a fiction title one of the workers had mentioned just before he closed the shop and he knew they must have it, it was popular, the man had said… While Aziraphale fluttered around accumulating a massive stack of things he would most definitely have to read and then probably order copies of as soon as he worked out where to put them in the absence of a stockroom, Crowley chatted with the person at the till.

Arms full, Aziraphale returned to the counter to find Crowley carrying on as he picked through a little bowl of pins. “I told her it was a bad idea, but what do I know, I’m only a demon. Oh, hello, angel. Was just telling my friend about all the advice I gave the Bloomsbury Set.”

“I thought you were asleep for that?” Aziraphale asked, trying not to look too suspicious at the placid expression on the clerk’s face.

“Well, yeah, I was asleep for the beginning of it, why d’you think it ended so ba- no, you paid for lunch!” And Crowley shouldered him (and his open billfold) out of the way.

Aziraphale blinked, recognized the lost cause, and decided to turn his attention to the person who probably thought Crowley was insane. “I do apologize for whatever my husband’s been telling you-”

“The truth, angel, why would I lie to humans, not like it’s in my best interest anymore-”

“I think the cold is getting to him.”

The clerk raised one eyebrow, almost smiled, and kept ringing them up.

“Here, throw these in,” Crowley said, sliding two pins over the counter. “Hold him over until he gets his heirloom rainbow flag.” Then, when the cashier looked up, “Yeah, you know, the usual, send them over, just let me, er-” Crowley’s eyes widened. “Oh shit. We live together now. The address is the same.”

They nodded and passed Crowley the receipt.

Aziraphale glanced between them and opened his mouth, but was being dragged back outside before he could say anything. Finally, about ten feet from the door, “You know them?”

“Well,” Crowley said, gaze darting to Aziraphale and away again, “I didn’t want you t’get jealous, and I didn’t… it’s not like they’re selling genderfluid periodicals in M&S, are they?”

Aziraphale stopped short. “May I hug you?”

“Of course you c- oh,” Crowley let out a huff of breath as Aziraphale grabbed him a bit harder than he’d meant to but he wasn’t letting up Crowley needed to _understand_ \- “Oh, angel, y- thank you,” Crowley sounded choked up. He hugged back.

“You tell me your favourites and we’re sending them to the shop. With all the mail I get I know why you don’t send for anything at the flat, but really. We need something for the coffee tables. Only a few, though, of course we’re coming back here-” Aziraphale cut off as Crowley’s arms tightened and a wave of affection, gratitude, love love love rolled through him.

Finally Crowley sniffed and pulled away, though he kept his arm around Aziraphale’s waist. “Come on. Got another exhibit to show you, but then there’s this wine place I wanted to check out and one more walking destination and I know technically this is our honeymoon but we haven’t been around enough people to get used to it, every time you call me ‘husband’ my brain reboots, so if we need to have a half proper wedding or at the very least a cake for it we have to get it from the place that does the full rainbow ones-” and they were headed into Russell Square Station, thank someone, because it was warm down there.

In about ten minutes they were at the British Library.

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. “I completely forgot, I even got a fake name this year and everything but with the apocalypse and the bookshop I haven’t even-”

Crowley was already dragging him in a determined direction, carrying on with the fast talking Aziraphale knew meant he was still in danger of getting choked up, himself, “Come on, some young adult thing showing and then you can pop in and say hi to your favorites while I figure out which sodding bus route will take us where I want to go, and yes, you can buy me gloves but we’re going to stop somewhere good, and I do not need earmuffs in addition, thank you, because…”


	14. Chapter 14

“We can do it.”

“Do what?” Crowley looked up from the wedding venue he’d been contemplating. Had at least a few people to invite, didn’t they? And it wouldn’t do to have a honeymoon, what, a hundred and fifty years late? Better if it was early. So they should at least have the wedding- a wedding- in the same decade. Except Aziraphale had spoken like he was continuing a conversation, like the ‘it’ they could do was something Crowley should understand, like it was _so important_ \- oh.

Aziraphale, excited, was already answering, “I think I know a way we can put our corporations in stasis. And if we do that we might be able to spend enough time out of them to sort the energy overflow business out, or at the very least get to drift around however long we like without worrying about accidentally losing our higher brain functions.”

By the time Aziraphale had finished speaking, a no-doubt helpful book sitting open in his lap, Crowley was gaping at him like he’d just suggested they try living as ducks for a while. “What?”

“It makes sense. With what I’ve read here, it should- I know we’re getting accustomed to each other, but after the past few days I know- well, I’ve felt you come, I can’t deny the danger anymore.”

Crowley’s brain hopped rather unwillingly over ‘I’ve felt you come,’ ticked through the ‘I can’t deny the danger’ with more than a hint of smugness, and moved onto the implications of the sentence at large. Namely the part involving them doing the full Monty noncorporeally, or whatever approximation they wanted, anyway, possibly learning enough to have not-fatal corporeal sex. Both sounded nice; he was still getting the long end of the stick, though. Trying his thing first. Even if it did make more sense. “Are you sure?” Crowley finally croaked.

“Well, I can’t be sure it’ll work, but seeing as the two of us are uniquely qualified Earth-dwellers when it comes to recognizing ethereal energies and their active effects-”

He cut off as Crowley dove on top of him, saying, “I’m sorry, your book-”

“No,” Aziraphale said, wrapping one arm tight around Crowley and using the other to shove the book onto the floor, which, that was sexy for a whole lot of unexpected reasons, have to take another look at that later, “It’s perfectly alright, darling, we’re at home, we were discussing this sort of thing, and I told you, while I appreciate your thoughtfulness, I have always enjoyed unexpected shows of affection, and I would appreciate it quite a lot if you’d keep showing them to me.”

Crowley mouthed at his neck in response. “M’kay. Yeah. And we won’t die?”

“Our corporations shouldn’t. And obviously it takes the intervention of the Lord Herself to kill an ethereal being.”

“What about, mmm, what about the fire and water?” He’d slid one hand up to grip the angel’s neck and the other ‘round his waist.

Aziraphale didn’t seem to mind. “She still has the final say. That I firmly believe.”

Crowley hummed into his shoulder. In their many discussions of true forms and sex, they’d both expressed certainty that even if they fucked their corporations over, an act of love wasn’t going to be the thing that properly did them in. And even if it was… be a right mess, sorting the merged energies of an angel and a demon, wouldn’t it? Zira was guaranteed an afterlife, technically, because he hadn’t fallen, so even if he _died_ died, he was going back up to Her, that was the way it went with angels, ‘cept if they were meshed together that’d make the whole thing rather complicated. Airfield all over again, except this time, bless it, they’d be a tangle of energy instead of two beings trapped in the same body.

Basically there was nothing definite to lose but their bodies and Aziraphale had found a way around that the clever bastard so Crowley could see him again, really see him, this time without the holding back that came of trying something wholly unknown and universally unprecedented.

“I think we should get our wings out first though,” Aziraphale continued as Crowley made a thorough exploration of any and all bits of exposed skin available to him, “just to be safe.”

“Mmm, yeah, okay, yep. Where’re we doing it?”

“Well, I thought- d'you think it’d be alright to do it in here?”

Crowley laughed against his wrist. “You can ruin almost everything in this flat if that’s what I get out of it. Though I know you’re fond of those books.”

“I am, rather.”

“Bedroom.”

“Crowley-”

“I’m being reasonable, there’s more space to not knock things over there and I know I, at least, can control myself-”

“I’m sitting on the floor, then. For both our sakes.”

“Fine, whatever, yeah,” Crowley said, swiping his tongue over Zira’s pulse point.

Aziraphale shuddered and pulled away as much as he could given Crowley was in his lap in a chair. “Would you please behave yourself?”

“I don’t want to. But I will. For you.” Crowley placed a kiss on his cheek and got to his feet. He held out a hand for Aziraphale, who allowed himself to be pulled up. “Huh,” Crowley said as he caught sight of the book, which, though it had been thrown on the floor, was laying closed out of the walkway and looking no worse for wear. “Anyway, how are we doing this? Do you need a circle? Because we’ve got all that space next to the bed, I think it’s meant for a seating area or something but I know you’re just going to put books in it as soon as you find ones you want to go there.”

“Yes. I think that would be- well- I was thinking you might want to be on the bed. More comfortable.”

“Aw.” So thoughtful. Melting his black little heart. “You sure?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “I’ve been using similar meditative processes to contact head office for years. I’ll be perfectly comfortable on the floor.”

“Okay.” Crowley reluctantly dropped his hand and launched onto the bed. “What now? D’you need me to help you set anything up?”

“No, it’s fairly simple. It’s almost like stopping time, so actually- would you mind observing? Seeing if you think the theory is sound?”

“I’d love to.” Crowley sat up and crossed his legs. “Is it just chalking runes and things?”

“Yes, where’d I put the- ah,” Aziraphale said, finding the chalk on the vanity that’d been transported from the bookshop flat, and set to work in the space next to the bed. After a finishing flourish, he stood to take in the whole thing.

“Something wrong?”

“Maybe- well, this follows all the usual principles, it should protect us from corporeal harm in a certain radius. What do you think?”

Crowley craned his neck. “I think it looks like a bubble ward.”

“A bubble ward?”

“Yeah, that’s- look, I was never very good at these things, I really only know them to know how to avoid them, so-”

“Do you think it’ll work?” A glance up at the angel’s face revealed a bit more trepidation than the excitement ten minutes before had suggested.

Crowley locked eyes with him. “I absolutely think it will. And I’ll light it up with you.” He climbed off the bed and pulled open the drawer holding the rarely-used summoning candles, then arranged them carefully at the correct points and chucked a book of matches at Aziraphale. Crowley looked up again, found Zira looking somewhat reassured (if surprised he’d caught the matches). “Ready?”

Aziraphale nodded, and they set to work. When all the candles were lit the chalk pulsed a faint, warm white glow and then settled into looking a little shiny. Zira sat to one side of it, sort of at the corner of the bed, in a spot he’d be able to extend his wings without bumping into any candles or furniture, and Crowley hopped back on the bed, wriggling around until he got comfortable on his stomach. His face was quite close to Zira’s, actually, so he shoved himself forward to give him a kiss of encouragement.

“Alright,” Aziraphale said, looking fortified. “Shall we?”

“Oh, wait,” Crowley said, and twisted his t-shirt off and threw it into a corner. “Don’t want to use a miracle working that out.”

“Right,” Aziraphale said, and hastened to unbutton his own shirt, folding it and his undershirt haphazardly on the floor behind him. “Crowley?”

For as much skin as they’d touched of each other’s they hadn’t made it too far into the corporeal nudity thing; it was always hands slid under clothes, stolen peripheral glances while they were changing the human way, or, at most, a shirtless Crowley. Zira’s bare torso was mesmerizing, a silky-soft expanse of pale plushness scattered with freckles and downy golden hair. “Ngk.”

“ _Crowley_ ,” Aziraphale said more insistently.

Crowley shook himself. “Yeah, sorry.” He tore his eyes from the round perfection of Aziraphale and let his wings spring into existence. Crowley ran a stretch through them, felt them brush the edges of the room. The sensation was new enough, after so much time, to keep his ogling at bay, at least for a while. “That feels good. Haven’t done that in months.” They’d wanted to fly, he remembered, but that day in the field had been so overwhelming he’d forgotten about it.

Aziraphale opened his wings much more gracefully, unfolding them from nothing into their own full span, his right curling the slightest bit against the mercifully empty wall and blocking both doorways with brilliant white.

“Oh,” Crowley said as he looked at them. Zira’s wings almost shimmered, hints of gold catching the sparse light in the overcrowded room and throwing it back in brilliant rays. Crowley had never noticed the gold before, hadn’t seen them often enough or in the right lighting or- “God, you’re beautiful,” he said, throwing in a sweeping look so the angel knew he meant all of him.

Aziraphale blushed. “So are you. Can I-?” He reached out a hand.

Crowley nodded.

Aziraphale’s fingertips ghosted over the top of his left wing, stroking the edge of one feather. “Stunning. Gorgeous. Almost iridescent.”

Crowley shrugged as much as one could while propped on elbows in bed. “Call it space residue.” He had tried not to dwell too much on the change in his wings, on the way the faint, ever-shifting colors had flattened, fallen away, and then emerged tucked into black. Hardly ever saw them, these days. Weren’t exactly mirrors in that other space, and he wasn’t about to create one just to remind him of the farthest reaches of his long, long life.

“I think we should do it now,” Aziraphale said, pulling his hand back. “Not that I wouldn’t love to stay here forever, just-”

“Right,” Crowley said, understanding. He settled into the duvet and shut his eyes, if a bit unwillingly, and opened his other ones. _Oh, wow. S’different._

They hadn’t known what to expect the first time, so it’d been better keeping their physical wings away; but now there was an added harmony to Aziraphale’s energy, the mending of the barely-noticeable disconnect between spirit and corporation that had been there before. And they were already closer, already in each other’s space, the details magnified without having to reach. Zira’s noncorporeal eyes fluttered open and a wave of astonishment came from him. _I can see so much._

 _We’re closer. And we’re not cut off from our bodies the same, look._ Crowley extended his wing forward just a bit and could feel his wing touching Aziraphale’s in physical space. _I thought we were leaving our bodies?_

_This is like the air base. When we took them with._

_Yes, but why?_ Crowley couldn’t parse it. _We didn’t bring them over here completely, I can still feel my corporation in the bedroom. I didn’t feel where I was before._

_I think the ward worked wrong. Or better than expected, I suppose. Won’t know until we try it without._

_No, this is perfect._ Crowley laughed, a ruffle of energy in one place and a sound in another. _We are good at fucking things up just right, aren’t we?_

_I suppose we are._

Their energies were mingling like before, but it was easier to do it this way. A meter of closed distance and a made-up ward and they were doing what they’d done with each other before- moving over and under- except now it was more, now Crowley could feel Aziraphale’s energy blending with his. _This is weird. It’s more like we’re mixing._ Crowley could still feel which energy was his and which was Aziraphale’s, but the closeness was flooding them with each other, Crowley’s astonishment and fondness flowing around Aziraphale’s own. _What did that ward do?_

_I don’t know, but we’re breathing._

They were. _I can just look at you, then._

They stayed like that for a very long time.

When the candles burned low and Crowley had to admit that he understood Aziraphale’s energy well enough to feel its every intricate shift from anywhere in the universe (maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but it wasn’t like he wasn’t always looking, now, was it, and he would rather die than get far enough away not to feel it), they fell out of that place and completely back into their bodies again.

The room was spinning, and everything smelled like ozone, and Crowley felt like he was floating on the ceiling even though he knew for a fact he wasn’t. “Holy shit.”

Aziraphale had slumped onto the bed, face resting mere inches from Crowley’s and eyes looking just as dreamy as Crowley felt. “Indeed.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m wonderful. Are you alright?”

“Spectacular. Never been better. Are we- can one be high off a person?”

“Certainly can’t think of another way to put it.”

“Was that angel sex?”

Aziraphale laughed. “I don’t know. Prefer not to think of myself as wholly angelic nowadays. What about demons?”

“Nah. Too dark for anything like that. Too competitive. And me neither.” Half-demon at best, if he was being honest.

Aziraphale’s smirk said he could sense the thought. _Someone_ this was trippy. Crowley could feel Zira’s responding warmth even though there was no way either of them could be consciously projecting anything in their respective states. “We do still have to test it without the ward. And you’ll have to help me record it, I don’t want to lose that configuration.”

“Take a thousand pictures. Got cloud storage before it was invented.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Aziraphale said, sounding like he didn’t mind either way and was happy regardless.

“We’ll have them until all the computers explode.”

Aziraphale hummed.

Crowley didn’t want to look away from him. “Are you feeling more corporeal?”

“Still tingly.”

“Well, yeah. Bit of a longer cooling off period.” Crowley shifted the limbs he was starting to feel more soundly and glanced around the room. “S’dark. We should turn on the lights.”

“You can see, though, can’t you?”

“Don’t want to deny my angel a proper view,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale huffed. “It’s late anyway. Why don’t we just sleep?”

Crowley smiled. “You, my Zira, wanting to sleep. Really done a number on you, have I?” He reached out to touch his cheek.

Aziraphale leaned into the touch. “You have. And you don’t look very awake yourself.”

“M’keeping my eyes open so I can look at you.”

“You just spent hours looking at me.” He sounded exasperated, and besotted, and all those other good things he sounded when he was nearly glowing.

“Could do it forever. I didn’t get to as much, before. Glasses helped, but I knew if I wasn’t careful you’d feel it and I’d have to stop.”

Aziraphale laughed softly. “That isn’t fair at all, you know? I could only look when you weren’t looking, because you’d see me.”

“I think I could always tell,” Crowley said. “Keep looking away so I could feel it for longer.” When holding Zira’s eyes started the burn in the back of Crowley’s throat that came just before tears, he said, “We should sleep,” and started flipping ‘round to get situated on his side of the bed. He also tucked his wings away, given they’d never cuddled with them before and he didn’t think he had the mental stamina to work out the logistics just then.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Aziraphale asked, getting wearily to his feet and shifting his own wings out of sight.

“Yes. M’fine. Best I’ve ever been. Honest.” Crowley’s voice only cracked a little.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, and then climbed into bed and pulled him close. “What is it?”

“Can’t you tell?” Crowley felt so bare, Zira seeing all that him for so long and now this, finally being chest to chest in their corporations and their beings, absolutely nothing between them.

“No, I- all I can sense is love.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said, voice breaking for real this time.

Aziraphale’s arms tightened around him, fingers pressing gloriously into the skin of Crowley’s shoulder blade. “Oh, my love...”

Crowley let himself sob. After Aziraphale’s soothing whispers- that same phrase, over and over, ‘my love,’ interspersed with things like ‘everything’s alright’ and ‘I’ve got you,’ with Aziraphale rubbing circles into his back all the time, after that’d calmed him down somewhat, Aziraphale snuggled him under the covers.

“What about you?” Crowley croaked.

“What about me?”

“You didn’t get in your pyjamas the second we got home-”

“I am perfectly comfortable.”

“But your trousers-”

Aziraphale tutted, then, somehow, without lessening his hold on Crowley in the slightest, shimmied his trousers off. “There.”

Crowley felt worry nip in at the edges of his increasingly fuzzy consciousness. “Are you sure you don’t want to-”

“I am too tired to be amorous just now, my love, so if you would very kindly let yourself sleep already.”

“Yeah, alright. Talk in th’morning.” Crowley was already drifting, the exhaustions of the evening and Aziraphale’s hands on his back coaxing him towards sleep. “Love you.”

“I love you always, my dear,” was the last thing he heard before sinking into sleep.

Crowley woke in almost the exact same position he’d fallen asleep in, clinging to Aziraphale’s chest.

“Finally awake, my love?”

Crowley twisted his neck to see Aziraphale looking at him. “What d’you mean? How long have you been up?”

“Only an hour or so.”

Crowley made a sound of protest, but didn’t say anything else. Didn’t exactly wish Aziraphale would’ve moved, did he? “What time is it?”

“Just past eight. We got quite a bit of sleep.”

Crowley couldn’t help but hum his agreement, as he had not looked at a clock since the afternoon before and would have to take the angel’s word for it. “Sleep well?”

“I did. Although I feel obliged to tell you- I was sort of- well, I was sort of listening to your dreams.”

“Mmm, how?” Crowley sent some curious approval his way so he’d know the hesitation wasn’t necessary.

“Just, the _feelings_... you know skin makes it more, and being this close to you every time you thought of something especially intense I could feel the emotion, though I couldn’t tell why you were feeling that way.” Zira still didn’t sound totally steady.

“I wouldn’t have done what we did last night- and I wouldn’t be doing this,” Crowley added, pressing his forehead into Aziraphale’s delightfully soft skin, “if I wasn’t okay with you feeling my feelings. You showed me all of yours. I can tell you’re a little hesitant but generally very content right now.” It had changed, how he sensed Aziraphale’s emotions; before it’d been more of a careful effort, a dip in towards his energy to check before retreating back to his own corporation. Now Crowley could feel the energy between them, ebbing and flowing, like when they were really lost in each other or had been cuddling for hours. Only he had a feeling, this time, that when they broke contact it wouldn’t go away. “I think we linked them. Our energies. Like- well, I don’t know what like, but it feels like we set up a sort of connection.”

A glint of bastardy lit the angel’s expression. “Is it bad that I’d rather not part and find out?”

“No. Not in the slightest. Except- are you okay? Not- er- not feeling too sexual? I’m not-” Crowley took a breath and reminded himself being nervous was patently ridiculous given what they’d done last night. “I just think it’d be better for us to talk first, you know, so we’re sure we won’t mess anything up. Not to mention I’m not entirely convinced you’re not going to pass out again once I've got some food in you.”

The welling up of excitement when Crowley said ‘food’ gave him away.

“Okay,” Crowley said, and begrudgingly dragged himself away from Aziraphale.

“No, don’t, I’m not even human, we don’t need to eat, you’re being ridiculous,” Zira said, very fast, no doubt finding improper verbal punctuation worth the haste.

Crowley stared down at him. The hands-on-his-hips gesture probably had a very different context when he was half naked, but he was doing it anyway.

“Fine,” Aziraphale practically hissed, and threw back the covers.

“I’m proud, you know,” Crowley said, placing a hand on his back as he followed a fantastically still-shirtless Aziraphale towards the kitchen. “Pouting about cuddling. Very human.”

“I am not pouting,” Aziraphale lied.

“Mmm,” Crowley hummed noncommittally and drifted to the right to start the coffee. “D’you want this or tea?”

“As long as you put cocoa in it.”

Crowley got the mugs and the sugar and the cocoa powder. “Pass me the milk?” When Aziraphale did, he poured some into one mug and stuck it in the microwave.

Aziraphale clicked his tongue.

“Ridiculous,” Crowley said, but took the mug out to heat the milk on the stove, anyway.

Although Aziraphale had looked like he was going to start preparing food for them a second ago, when Crowley did the milk thing he came and wrapped his arms around him, chin on his shoulder.

“So no food, then?” Crowley asked.

“Shut up,” Aziraphale said, and started kissing his neck.

“I thought we were meant to be testing the energy before you jumped my bones?”

Zira made a noise that was probably whinging, but it was hard to tell since his mouth was firmly attached to Crowley’s shoulder. Then he pulled off, close enough that Crowley could feel the words against his skin, to say, “I am not so unreasonable as to suggest lovemaking and nudity before we’ve gained some understanding of how our energies respond.”

“So you do want to jump my bones, but we’re going to experiment first?” When Aziraphale continued kissing all the parts of Crowley he’d so rarely had a chance to, Crowley said, “You’re absurd. I don’t know why I put up with you.” Then he went to get him a scone, Aziraphale kissing him the whole way.


	15. Chapter 15

They needed to fly.

“Alright, then. Let’s go,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale felt his eyes widen. “But it’s so cold today.”

Crowley shrugged. “Use our miracles to make holes in our clothes. Come on, where should we go? Drive north? Or west, maybe we should go west, lot of land out there.”

Aziraphale held his gaze a second longer, then said, “I’ll get our coats.” Spending a considerable amount of time indoors or in the Bentley, they hadn’t needed to wear their heavy jackets. The only time they’d really been out was that chilly walk through London and the night they’d picniced and first shifted into their true forms, but even those times it hadn’t been nippy enough to warrant full winter attire. Aziraphale grabbed Crowley’s long jacket, the one he didn’t like to wear because it interfered with his swagger, and his own thick puffer coat. Gloves, hats (even though Crowley would likely deny his), scarves... actually, he’d better get them some extra layers while he was at it. Did either of them have long underwear? Well, of course they did, it was right there.

When Aziraphale returned to the living room, arms piled high with clothes, Crowley said, “Where’re we going, the Arctic circle?” but immediately started stripping off anyway.

Aziraphale, conscious that the mission, this time, was to get dressed and not undressed, tried to minimize his staring as the two of them got proper layers on. Crowley was not nearly so careful; he gave Aziraphale no less than three salacious once-overs while he was pulling warm fabric over bare legs and chest, not to mention the deliciously indecent noises he would make only to glance pointedly away before Aziraphale could catch him out.

Finally, when Aziraphale was starting to feel faint with heat but Crowley looked abnormally content and faintly drowsy, they headed down to the Bentley.

“Which direction?” Crowley said as he turned the key.

“Don’t know. Haven't seen any standing stones in a while, have we?”

“Merlin’s grave, really, angel? Well, alright, if you insist,” and they were off.

Stonehenge was already closed by the time they made it out. They were lucky in their timing, as the cold conspired to keep special after-hours visitors away. After parking in the lot and having a very nice chat with the guard on duty, who Crowley had known for over a decade, they set off into the fields, bypassing the stones themselves to head for the nearest cover of trees.

“Why here?” Crowley said.

“We were both sent, do you remember?”

“Of course I remember. You were a few days late. I knew because they’d somehow learned they were sending you, except when I got here you hadn’t arrived yet.”

“The scrolls, my dear,” Aziraphale said. “The birth of ancient libraries.”

“Yes, I know,” Crowley said, making a grab for his hand through their gloves and managing to grip it tighter than should have been possible, “of course I know, I almost came to get you.”

“You didn’t!” Aziraphale knew better than to argue, really; he’d heard the honesty in Crowley’s voice, felt it in the energy that radiated through their hundred layers and the sharp cold air between them.

Crowley shrugged.

“Two millennia,” Aziraphale said quietly, leaning into him.

“Before Rome? Yeah. Might've sped things up a bit, sometimes I wonder.”

Aziraphale let out a giddy laugh. They were here, together, in the world that hadn’t ended. They'd come all the way out to what Crowley called ‘arse-tit middle of nowhere,’ in the dead of winter, just so they could fly. So they could fly together, unseen by humans, and damn or bless anyone else watching who cared.

“Think we’re far enough yet?” Crowley glanced around towards the visitors’ pavilion. Aziraphale could barely see it in the dark.

“I think so.” Aziraphale rolled his shoulders, gave Crowley’s hand one last probably-imperceptible squeeze, and stood back. He pulled his wings out and opened space in his clothing at once.

“Beautiful,” Crowley murmured, and then he, too, was opening his wings, materializing them before Aziraphale could blink.

“Stunning.” Aziraphale couldn’t stop staring, now, wide-eyed to catch as much of the iridescence as he could, so much easier to see in darkness but blending into it all the same. “Absolutely gorgeous.”

“Shut up,” Crowley said, no doubt blushing, and glanced to the empty space to their right. “Running start?”

“Oh, I don’t run, darling,” Aziraphale said. He summoned his strength and pushed off, using more force than was strictly necessary. Dented the ground a little.

“You cheat!” Crowley yelled, and then sprung up after him.

Aziraphale had used the wind to get moving instead of starting at speed; Crowley followed suit, powerful wingbeats sending light gusts of air Aziraphale’s way. He looked to his left and found Crowley smiling, an easy, open thing, the kind of smile he wore when Aziraphale woke second to find Crowley staring at him, or as he came with a cry in Aziraphale’s palm. It was a beautiful smile, one he’d almost never seen before. That smile was part of the reason Aziraphale remembered Rome so well, part of the reason he remembered Eden, even, though in Eden there’d been a wobbly quality to everything they did, an untestedness that belied their supposed confidence that they were both doing what they were supposed to be.

Now Crowley had all the eagerness and none of the uncertainty. He soared, effortless, graceful, and Aziraphale felt so lifted by his look and the thrill of being in the air again and the feeling of wind rushing past as they went he was nearly dizzy. The icy air was the only thing keeping him properly alert, that and the effort it took to hear the little sounds of triumph Crowley kept making before they were snatched away by the sky.

Exhilaration and delight, as well as exertion, kept the cold away for a while. For minutes, hours, maybe, they just flew, twisting loops and circles around the pavilion below. Watching the stones grow larger and smaller in turns. But finally the chill sank in, bringing with it bone-deep tiredness, and they had to land.

Crowley fell into a crouch and snapped his wings out of existence, closing the space to seal his clothes again; Aziraphale tumbled rather than landed. He needed a moment to right himself before he could draw the concentration to tuck his wings from view. Crowley reached out a hand to steady him. “Alright, angel?”

“Feels so terrible to put them away, even though it’s cold. Should’ve done this sooner,” Aziraphale said, reaching up to take the hand Crowley’d placed on his shoulder.

“Yeah. We’ll do it again. When it’s warm. Was nice though.” Crowley wore a softer version of that perfect smile.

“It was nice,” Aziraphale agreed. “Almost worth the slights of decency I suffered getting dressed for it.”

“Ah, no, you love it.”

Aziraphale grinned. “I do, rather.”

Crowley never stopped being shocked by Aziraphale saying he enjoyed these things; his ears turned red, and he mumbled “ngk” and started pulling Aziraphale towards the car.

Back home they took off their bulkier layers and threw cosy ones right back on, curling up on the sofa in front of a fireplace Crowley’d decided should be there when they get back, not as if they hadn’t miracled the clothes and a decent number of cleaning jobs recently besides. For once he drank cocoa, too, and the sugariness mixing with the scent of the fire and the onslaught of contented angel next to him proved a heady combination. “I am very high right now.”

“You can’t be high. You haven’t ingested anything.”

Crowley snorted. “High on life, angel. And I should know what being high feels like, I toured with rock bands, didn’t I?” He took a sip of cocoa and marveled in the silkiness of it on his tongue. Sort of like angel tongue, wasn’t it? Should drink cocoa more often.

“The Beatles didn’t do drugs,” Zira said in that offhand way he did when he wasn’t especially concerned but wanted to argue for the sake of it.

“Everyone did drugs in the sixties, Zira, it was the sixties.” Crowley sank deeper into the sofa and Azriaphale’s side, luxuriating in the warmth. “Mind, took a few years for the tours to get crazy. F’we hadn’t had all that war we’d’ve prob’ly got there sooner.”

“I’m glad there wasn’t one, a war. So terribly glad.”

“Me, too. Had a few bad ones, I mean, genocide, but, like, who invented it?” Crowley was amazed he wasn’t drunk. He must be. Or high or something. They only rambled like that when they were off their faces.

“Good year, 1941,” Aziraphale said. “War ended. Got new cataloging rules.”

That rang a bell, had Crowley sitting a tad straighter, searching Aziraphale’s expression. “But you never...” Crowley trailed off. That wasn’t the expression he’d been expecting, Aziraphale looking wistful. “No. You didn’t organize things like that, you’ve never held with that.”

Aziraphale was staring mournfully into his cocoa. “Oh, yes. Yes, yes, years, Crowley. Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress and all the rest. Thirty-eight of my own systems. After the monks? After the way nobles kept their books? What was I to do?”

Crowley only stared.

Aziraphale went on, “The nuns, Crowley. Monks and nuns. Castles. Wealthy people wanting status. Everything before Gutenberg and everything after. An absolute free-for-all, most of it, and me, a rock standing in vain against the tide, trying to make something stick until the humans finally overcame my hope. All said it was centuries of attempts before I realized the haphazard mess of a charity bookshop would make it harder for them to buy anything. Before I saw the benefit.” He took a long draught of cocoa.

Crowley shook his head, still not believing it. “But you never... you’d have had to learn-”

“Monasteries, Crowley. All the time in monasteries, and the only thing I didn’t enjoy about it was how difficult it was to get things done without a system. Can you imagine? Got a system upstairs, perfectly streamlined. And the one downstairs is still there, even if it’s inefficient for its own sake. But before Panizzi? Chaos, Crowley. Unbridled chaos.”

“1941,” Crowley said slowly, “I know, that was the year you- but why’s it- ah,” Crowley said, striking on it. The controversy of cataloging’s origins. Or, more specifically, Panizzi’s ideas about them. “But that wasn’t well-received. The 1941 version.”

Aziraphale waved a hand. “Well, no, but as a foundation for the later versions-”

“Was me,” Crowley said, remembering.

“What?” Aziraphale looked like he thought Crowley was having him on.

Except he wasn’t. “One who made the whole thing so bloody complicated, had librarians everywhere screaming in the streets. I did the temptation that... Zira,” Crowley put on a whinging tone, deciding that this was a better track than the dead-end blamelessness that was the default for other such conversations.

“What?” This time Zira’s tone was indulgent, like he knew what Crowley was doing.

Well. Still going to see the thing through. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’d’ve warned you, slipped you someone’s better notes, something.”

Aziraphale used another hand wave to buy enough time to drain his glass. After running his tongue rather obscenely over his lips and setting the mug down, he said, “You had no interest in it then. I’m still not convinced your interest isn’t entirely-”

Crowley’s haziness abandoned him completely, interruption falling from his mouth like a stone, “No, come on, you’ve seen me read, angel.”

“Biographies. Of musicians.”

“Still reading. And you haven’t... You _have_ checked the shelves,” Crowley said. He hadn’t thought to realize it before, but he knew Aziraphale knew. That one precious shelf in their bedroom, joined now by another piled with Zira’s things but having very much existed before he moved in. The straggling other volumes that had wormed their way into the shelf wall in the living room, meshing with Zira’s seamlessly. The books that had turned up in the bookshop over the years, not nearly so important as to warrant a gesture, but left there by Crowley nonetheless.

While Crowley contemplated exactly how long his angel had _seen_ him, been seeing him, Aziraphale looked like he was going through the whole cataloging drama in his head. “Didn’t people dislike the 1949 rules, too?”

“Because I was still working on it,” Crowley said. “Can’t have British intellectuals setting any kind of standard, had to have a first-generation American do it properly.” Zira knew he liked to read all along and pretended he didn’t because Crowley was pretending and for as much as Zira loved it himself he hadn’t minded. _God_.

Aziraphale sighed. “Well, in any case. 1941. Decent year. You showed me your car.”

“I did show you my car,” Crowley said, feeling wholly unconcerned about his angel seeing through him all these years. No, not unconcerned, ecstatic, actually, because Crowley may be a demon but Zira was worth admitting he liked to read. Because Aziraphale had seen it in him. “S’ppose good’s an alright way to describe it.”

“Yes, and- oh, you know I can feel it.”

Crowley looked up, blinked. Spluttered a second before managing, “Yeah.”

Aziraphale was twinkling at him, staring into his eyes with the kind of naked adoration that if he saw it anywhere else would make Crowley wretch, but this was his angel, looking at him, like that. “You know I love you.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said, “Love you, too,” and then he shoved his mug onto the table and launched himself at Zira, whose arms were already open.

In the morning Aziraphale woke to the glow of white walls bouncing off red hair, an unexpectedly soft patch of skin pressed warm and safe under his left hand, the owner of both still soundly asleep.

Crowley looked so calm when he slept, a being, still, of energy, but one whose constant movement had finally settled into a humming reserve. He didn’t vibrate, exactly, when he slept; it was more of a shimmer, the faintest buzz of energy waiting to be sprung no matter how long its drowsy owner needed to properly wake. He was sprawled on his back, face turned halfway into the pillow. Each puff of steady air ruffled the pillowcase the gentlest bit. Caused his back to rise and fall, caused the skin under Aziraphale’s fingers to shift ever so slightly. The covers were pulled up to his waist. Before, he had burrowed into them, even fully clothed as Aziraphale usually saw him. Now there were two to warm the bed.

Or one to warm and one to cool it. Aziraphale had always found comfort in a bit of a breeze. Reminded him of standing on safe precipices, overlooking places he knew well. Eden. Later Earth. Even from Heaven Earth had felt like that, echo of safety reaching up even when his immediate surroundings were totally blank.

More of a summer breeze, when one was up there. A pleasant counteraction to the chill not unlike the way Crowley’s cool skin made up for the heat of too many blankets on the bed.

“You’re thinking very loudly over there.” Crowley’s voice, steady in volume and sounding much too awake, startled him.

“Did you mean that literally or can you only feel me staring?”

Crowley grinned and rolled to face him. “Mmmboth.”

“Ridiculous.”

Crowley’s grin became a full smile, and he tipped forward to kiss the tip of Aziraphale’s nose. “I won’t stop if you won’t.”

“What, pretending to be asleep?”

Crowley snorted and rolled onto his back to execute an unnaturally sinuous stretch. “Sure. If you say so.” When he was finished stretching he flipped back over, flinging an arm across Aziraphale’s waist. They’d started sleeping shirtless, on pretense to share heat but in practice because it was much easier to slip into sleep when their exhaustions blurred together. And because they enjoyed having nothing between them. It felt safe in a way other things didn’t. “What d’you want to do today?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Isn’t it nearly Christmas?”

“Not actually, but technically-”

“Human Christmas,” Aziraphale corrected with an eye-roll.

“Yeah. S’two days away.”

“And we’re expected at Tadfield tomorrow.”

“Sure, yeah, but there isn’t much preparing. She said, and I quote, ‘bring nothing or Newt will be devastated you’ve ruined the menu,’ and it’s not like we don’t have gifts, so-”

“Would you like to decorate?”

Crowley made a confused noise and twisted around to stare properly at him.

In the moments he hadn’t been considering the delightful way the indirect noon light bounced through the curtains and off Crowley’s skin, Aziraphale had wondered whether a bit of holiday sprucing might turn the bookshop into a mood booster. He’d never been one for decorating, which explained Crowley’s confusion. Aziraphale enjoyed the decorations, that wasn’t it; but, without them, customers were less likely to linger, or worse, return. Except he was closed, and besides when he wasn’t closed he was trying to attract customers. Decorating now would be good practice for next year. “I think it would be fun. And if we put some lights in the window it’ll make the whole street look better.”

“You mean compared to next-door’s pink tree?”

Aziraphale sighed, but didn’t say anything; he could see Crowley warming up to the idea, feel it in the way all that potential energy was buzzing to life at the edges of his being.

“Guess I see your point, though,” Crowley said. “Always wanted to see how many days I could interfere with putting a wreath on the Bentley. Ridiculous, that. And the lights, I mean, they’re a traffic hazard, honestly…”

Privately Aziraphale was under the impression that Crowley’s eagerness to decorate had something to do with the smiles it would inspire in total strangers, or something else similar to Aziraphale’s own reasons, but Crowley had yet to let his image slip regarding anything less than how much he loved Aziraphale. “God I love you.”

It was an interruption that Crowley took in stride. “Yeah, Aziraphale. I love you, too. And I’d love you even more if you used your daily miracle to give my car lights an indefinite energy boost, because there is no way I’m attaching anything to the Bentley that’ll have the slightest potential of damaging it, which means I’m using my miracle on that…”

They headed to the desktop version of Ikea- someplace equally Scandinavian and winding but featuring considerably smaller home improvements- and filled a big shopping bag with decorations.

After a brief debate and a whole lot of staring they decided not to get a tree. Maybe next year, Crowley said. Neither of them had ever had one and it wouldn’t do much good to get one now. The flat windows, though, they did deck out, stealing the best few strands of lights for themselves and packing the rest up to take to the bookshop.

When they were finished the windows glowed with a haphazard crisscross of light that spilled onto the pavement below and made the corner feel less lonely, somehow, than it ever had.

“I like it,” Crowley said. “Bit of a lark, bit disorganized, but overall it doesn’t matter because we had fun doing it.”

“We did, didn’t we?” Aziraphale said, and just stood there looking at him for a while.

Crowley watched Aziraphale sleep.

It wasn’t something he got to do very often, what with his always being the one to sleep later and everything, but when he did get the chance Crowley basked in it like an unexpected beam of sunlight. Aziraphale, his angel, sleeping, was a sight to behold.

It was still dark outside. Too early to be awake, really, but not too early for the onset of morning light just to reach, glowing in around the edges of the curtains and making Aziraphale look so pale and perfect it was almost a crime his wings were away.

When he was this deeply asleep Crowley could rest a hand on his arm, or rub circles into his back, without any risk of waking him. But the picture the angel made was too perfect, too pristine; he didn’t want to disturb it just yet. Best look a while longer. It would burn so much more when he finally did reach out, Crowley knew, and confirm that far from being a figment of his imagination Aziraphale was real and solid and asleep in his bed, in their bed.

He thought of the decades’, centuries’ distance they’d made it in just a few months. Making up for lost time. But really there was no such thing, was there, because he didn’t regret any of it. Didn’t wish he could go back and disturb that delicate balance. Oh, angel, by the way, I love you, and everything comes tumbling around their lives the way they knew them? No. This was better. Hurt like hell. Like the burn of touching him after too long, though; felt even better when he finally did. When he looked back at how much they’d done to get there and said, yes, all of that, all of that was worth it if I get this, if I get him, for even a moment.

Plenty still going on that could fuck it up. Crowley knew that. He’d known it the entire time, long before they’d confessed and long, even, before the Arrangement. Something could always go wrong. It was why you never put your eggs in one basket, why they hadn’t said ‘fuck you’ to their respective head offices sooner. Too dangerous, putting each other at risk like that. He could see it in the way Aziraphale looked at him those past few decades. Quiet but always there. Giving him the holy water, I love you, so I understand, I’m doing this for you because I understand, and Crowley’s world had almost shaken apart that day. It hadn’t. He’d kept it together, same as the angel had all those years.

And now, this.

An endless stretch more days of this.

That was enough for him to reach, place a hand on the angel’s tartan-covered back. Been right not to do it sooner, since when he did Zira sighed and said, “Good morning.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said. “Yeah, it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! There will be a sequel, just don't know when


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